The Way It Grows
by Springfall
Summary: When Harry and Draco are stranded on a remote island, the two must bury the hatchet to survive. And as something slowly begins to grow between the two boys, they realize that there is more between the two than it first seemed.
1. Sun and Wind

The Way It Grows  
  
Springfall  
  
Summary: When a detention-sprung mishap strands Draco and Harry on a remote Indonesian island, the two opposites must put aside their differences to survive. And something else grows from the cooperation that neither dares to name...  
  
A/N: This will, most likely, be a slash story. Who knows? But if you don't deal well with slash, I suggest you bail if I do decide something more than friendship grows. Thanks for reading! Reviews are always loved & cherished ^_^.  
  
~*~ Part One  
  
The Allotted Time ~*~  
  
~*~  
  
Day 1  
  
~*~  
  
"This is your entire fault, Potter," Draco growled, leaning his head back against a palm tree. It was hot, sticky and unpleasant. A mosquito whined around Draco's sun-bleached hair. He could not believe his luck. Here he was, stuck on this godforsaken little drop of land in the middle of a furious ocean, with Potter. Potter, of all people.  
  
"It is not my fault," Harry snapped back. He, too, was looking worse for wear and his shaggy black hair was bleaching out into an almost dun- like brown. It was getting so wild it was starting to curl at the nape of his neck and his ears. Draco noticed this disdainfully, thinking him looking more feminine than usual. Harry closed his eyes and took off his glasses. "I believe it was you who kicked the Portkey into the ocean."  
  
"I believe it was YOU who got us into these stupid, servitude-esque detentions in the first place!" Draco shouted back, his gray eyes slit against the brazen sunlight. His tone was severe. "If you and Weasley hadn't found it funny to put my book into my cauldron-"  
  
"You deserved it," Harry returned in a savage voice. "You deserved it, if I ever hear you call Hermione a Mudblood again, I swear that I'll kill you." He was glaring at Draco.  
  
"Why should that scare me? I outweigh you as it is," Draco said, examining a hangnail.  
  
"By about ten pounds, Malfoy," Harry said. It was true; Harry had been growing and getting stronger from Quidditch. Draco was still lithe and thin, though taller and with a deeper voice. Draco noticed that, although his hair was rough and wavy and almost mane-like, he was indeed larger than the little eleven-year old Draco had sneered at so long ago in Madam Malkin's. He blinked, the white-hot sun burning his retinas. 'I'll probably go blind out in this hellhole,' Draco thought savagely. "You, on the other hand, still haven't hit puberty yet, I see." Harry continued onward, tired by the heat and angry with Draco's attitude.  
  
"Go to hell, Potter," Draco growled back, opening one gunmetal-gray eye. "Your hair's beginning to look like Granger's, as it is. Your mum was Muggle-born, right? Must be a Mudblood thing, bushy, ugly hair," Draco said in vicious satisfaction.  
  
Harry turned around and dropped to his knees in front of Draco, grabbed his shoulders with calloused hands, and banged Draco's head brutally against the palm tree. Draco saw stars, as Harry continually pounded his head on the tree's solid, spiky trunk.  
  
"I. Warned. You. About. Calling. Her. A. Mudblood!" Harry punctuated each word with a solid smacking of Draco's head against the tree. "You. Do. It. Again. And. I'll. Kill. You. Malfoy." Draco slumped forward, his head brushing Harry's chest, a large blood smear on the sandy-colored trunk behind him. Harry's eyes widened, looking down at Draco's white, baby-fine hair, his anger leaving him in a flood. The back of Draco's fair head was stained maroon with his blood. Harry released his shoulders, his hands trembling, and Draco sagged forward more, his forehead pressing gently against Harry's breastbone. A trickle of blood ran down the centre of his head, down his part, and over his forehead. It ran off his nose onto Harry's yellow tee-shirt and spread there in a little red star. Harry scooted back violently, and Draco fell forward against the ground, the dusty grass rising about him, all the colors about him washed out, the sky a painful blue around his blood-reddened hair.  
  
"Shit," Harry said faintly. He tugged his shirt off over his head, ripped off one of the canary-colored sleeves, and sprinted as fast as his tired legs could carry him to the beach. He tripped and almost fell on his face into the salt water, where he skinned his knees against the rough, rocky sand as he soaked his sleeve in the salt water. He turned and stumbled back to where Draco lay, face-down, on the parched earth. He pulled Draco up, and pressed the sleeve against the smaller boy's injury. Draco didn't move. Harry grew even more alarmed. He struggled again to his feet, his clothing already beginning to dry in the scorching temperature of the mid-day sunlight. He remembered where there was a grove of fruit trees, not too far from where they were now, with a fresh-water pond. He stared down at Draco, no idea what to do with him. He picked his shirt up off the ground, and tucked it into the waistband of his shorts. He heaved Draco to his feet, leaning him against the palm tree for balance, and then he hoisted the limp form of his classmate onto his back, looping Draco's frail arms around his neck, holding the boy's bare knees steady around his own waist. He sighed against the heat and set off; hoping Draco wouldn't die before they figured out a way to get home.  
  
~*~  
  
Day 2  
  
~*~  
  
Draco woke up with a burning headache. He looked down. His neck was red above his grubby white shirt. Draco looked at it in disdain. Why was it so dirty? It looked as though Draco had been rolling about in the dirt. He also wondered why his vision seemed to be opaque and yellow in one eye, and why his head felt as though he had been swimming in a wet cap. He reached up and tugged free Harry's sleeve, studying it. It was yellow only in the front. It was a strange, rusty-sort of color in back, where it had been against his hair. 'It looks like blood,' he puzzled, bemused, trying to figure out why on Earth he had a shirt sleeve on his head, covered in what looked like blood. He sat up against the smooth bark of an orange tree, marveling at the fact the palm tree had grown oranges so randomly and quickly. Draco looked around him. 'Well, this is odd. It's as though I've moved'. His brow furrowed. Moved from where? Where was he, anyway? Why was there a shirt sleeve in his hands? Was he by himself? Wasn't he supposed to be in...here, Draco scrutinized his wrist-watch. 3.30 pm. Shouldn't he be in Charms? Was this even a weekday? Was it Friday? If it was Friday, he should be in Charms. Flitwick would give him detention. He tried to stand up, but his knees buckled.  
Well, that was weird. Draco tried again to stand. He fell a second time. Again, he stood and fell. This was repeated twice more before he sat down, shoulders hunched. Well, his legs didn't seem to be working. Perhaps he was drunk? Hung-over? That would explain the splitting headache and lack of limb control. Though it had never seemed so pronounced, the few times he had been drunk before. 'Think, Malfoy, think. Where the hell are you? Are you alone?' In concentration, Draco brought his head back rather sharply and pressed it to the tree trunk.  
  
"SON OF A BITCH!" he shouted, feeling a very, very tender part of his head hit the tree at a force much harder than he would have liked. A noise stopped somewhere ahead of him, but Draco didn't notice. He was rubbing his head, and something sticky came away in his hand. 'What?' Draco thought, puzzled. Someone stopped in front of him, in dirty white trainers with red stripes on their sides.  
"Malfoy?" someone asked in a voice coming from far away, as Draco looked at his hand, the same sort of rusty color on his pale palm as that on the shirt sleeve in his other.  
  
"Blood?" he asked no one in particular, before slipping sideways and hitting the wet grass.  
  
"Shit," Harry remarked softly, for about the fifth time that hour. He propped Draco up again, and went back to work. He had managed to chop down quite a few trees (Thank Merlin he had his wand on him) and transfigure the wood into a shack. Not the most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on, but it would do. Harry pondered the use of having this on the ground, where he had spent a miserable night worrying about animals and Draco and Lethifolds* and any number of things, including Cho and his Potions assignment due Monday. He knew that Prongs, the name that he so affectionally called his Patronus, would take care of him if he could manage to remember that spell while being suffocated. Harry had slept little, safe to say. With a swish and a flick, he had levitated the shack up into a strong-looking orange tree, the biggest in this little orchard. It was not far from the pond. He had heard Draco stir and come to investigate. Now that Malfoy had successfully knocked himself out again, Harry finished levitating fruit and the rest of their lunches from the other day up into their treehouse. He had stored water in the canteen Snape had given him, and this, too, he set Wingardium Leviosa upon and set it down in the house. He turned, hearing Draco moan faintly. He walked over to the tree where he had left the Slytherin, and looked down at the boy, faintly amused but more worried.  
  
"How are you, Malfoy?"  
  
"What?" Draco was groggy and his eyes unfocused. Harry frowned, and mumbled 'Mobilcorpus' at Draco, and floated the faintly protesting Draco over to his newly-treed shack. Draco landed with a soft thump on the wood floor, looking about him, as Harry scrambled up a makeshift ladder and joined Draco in the dark, fragrant shelter of the treehouse. Harry felt a bit like a Muggle again, remembering a time at age eight when he had spent the night in Dudley's treehouse during a thunderstorm, as punishment. He had loved every moment of it, and had cried the next morning when Uncle Vernon tried to pry him down from the large elm in the diminutive backyard.  
  
"You feeling okay, Malfoy?" Draco stared at Harry, trying to assess who exactly it was that was talking to him.  
  
"Potter?" He threw this to the wind in a blind guess. Harry nodded.  
  
"You got knocked around good, Malfoy," he replied fervently. Draco looked confused. He blinked, and shook his head, trying in vain to clear his thoughts. He winced instead.  
  
"I, er..." Harry began. "I kind of...smacked you around a bit."  
  
"You what?" Draco laughed shortly, as if it hurt him to. "I doubt that, Potter."  
  
"I did," Harry was irritated, and his eyes narrowed. "I beat your head against a tree because you were being smart about Hermione."  
  
"The Mudblood?" He asked in clarification, and scooted back as Harry lunged for him, missing by several inches as Draco evaded him. "Perhaps you did," he grudgingly complied, casting a dark look at Harry, who ran his fingers through his hair. "You bastard."  
  
Harry laughed. "You sound normal, Malfoy," he said. "So, we're stuck here until Snape notices we're not back. We were supposed to stay the night yesterday, but tonight...someone's bound to notice we're missing."  
  
"Don't hold your breath," Draco muttered, and Harry arched an eyebrow. "Snape's been apeshit lately over his stupid pre-N.E.W.T classes. You should know, that's the one we were in when you found it amusing to dump my book into my potion-"  
  
"Oh, Malfoy, stuff it," Harry yawned, popping in a bit of mango, and offered Draco the rest of the fruit and a knife to peel it with. "I know you're just smarting because you got shown up. You're so skinny and skill- less, no wonder you get so hostile. Your brain's not too hot, as it is. What's it that you've got going for you, anyway? Being evil?"  
  
Draco tackled Harry before Harry could swallow the bite of mango he had taken. His eyes flashed, though still looking a bit unfocused and the knife glinted the same color as those irises as he held it to Harry's throat.  
  
"Shut up, Potter," he hissed. "Just shut up. You think you're so smart- you don't know a thing. You don't know a damn thing." He stood up and let the knife clatter to the floor. "I'm going out. I'm taking a walk. I have to get out before I kill you."  
  
He had dropped from the treehouse and walked quickly into the forest before Harry could utter a word. He stared after him, wondering what to do next. 


	2. Night without Moon

The Way It Grows  
  
Springfall  
  
~*~  
  
Part Two:  
  
Moonless Night  
  
~*~  
  
~*~  
  
2nd Day's Night  
  
~*~  
  
Draco walked along, swinging a stick he'd picked up off the ground against the trees as he passed them. Who the hell did Potter think he was? Draco was beyond mad. He banged his stick hard, and it snapped. He flung the broken half away and shoved his hands deep into his pockets, looking down at his grubby shirt. The collar was blood-stained and wrinkled. He remembered that his hair was an ungodly mess, with the rusty, dried blood making his hair feel like straw. A cloud covered the sun and no more light fell in whispery patterns on his light skin. He noticed a clearing up ahead, and he quickened his pace. Draco had never been a big one for woods, not since that episode in first year, when Potter and Granger had dragged him along into the Dark Forest for detention. His face flushed in anger as he thought.  
  
Detentions! That's how he always ended up with Potter. Fucking Potter and his heroism and his goddamn childish pranks. Draco growled inwardly. They wouldn't be here on this godforsaken little island in the middle of Oceana, in the blazing tropical heat, collecting plants Snape needed for potions. This was the third weekend he'd wasted out here. Potter deserved this- but Draco? All he had done was swear at him and throw an innocent hex. But Snape had gone absolutely apeshit at the two of them and saddled them for two months of detention. It was a welcome change from the January weather, yes, but Indonesia? Draco snorted. What luck. Not only did they have detention, oh no, that would be *too* simple for Potter. That idiot- Draco cracked his knuckles making fists so tight balled in his pockets- had made Draco knock their Portkey into the ocean as he was chasing after one of the fish, to get scales, and ran into Draco. And there was no way to retrieve it- how were they supposed to find one conch shell in an ocean strewn with the damnable things? Draco kicked a clod of loose, rich earth with his leather shoes. And how was Snape supposed to know they couldn't get back? He wouldn't even be in. The Portkey destination was the Grand Staircase, as it were. Draco looked at his wristwatch. How long had he been walking? His watch read 8.14. What time did it get dark? Nine? He looked at the sun. It was defiantly sinking. He had reached a cove, now, where that clearing was. A little sparkling green cove of ocean, sheltered from the deep water. Draco was glad. He hated deep, dark water. A feeling of panic would settle firmly over him and it would not stop no matter what, until he was safe on solid ground again.  
  
'Maybe I should go back,' part of his brain mused. The larger part told him to shut the hell up. Draco walked towards the water and yanked off his heavy leather lace-ups. Why did he wear these? He didn't own any trainers, but he could have borrowed some. His father didn't like trainers. Thought they were cheap and too Muggle-ish, Lucius Malfoy always did. Draco tugged his polo shirt over his head. Damn Potter, damn Snape, damn detentions, damn Lucius and his ban on Muggle clothes, damn island, damn Portkey, damn ocean, damn Draco. He stopped. No. This wasn't his fault. This was Potter's. This was ALL Potter's fault. Draco stripped off his shorts, which were ripped and dirty. They hadn't been washed since the last time he'd been out here. Draco debated taking off his undershorts, and finally with a sigh did so, and waded out into the cool water, shivering a bit, bringing his clothes with him. He started scrubbing them furiously together, aware that the little voice in the back of his head was talking to him again.  
  
'You owe Potter gratitude,' it said.  
  
"No, I certainly don't," Draco muttered, scrubbing his trousers against themselves. "He was the one who concussed me, remember?"  
  
'Then saved you.'  
  
"Shut it," Draco snapped. "Only because Snape would be mad if he left me for dead."  
  
'You need to go back,' said the voice. 'He'll worry.'  
  
"And why should I care?"  
  
'Because you don't like anyone to worry. Even Potter.'  
  
"I don't give a damn about him."  
  
'That's a lie, Malfoy.' Draco tossed his shorts on the shore. 'You know it is.'  
  
"Shut up," Draco said, vehemently. "Just shut up."  
  
'I can't,' the voice replied simply. It reminded Draco of Blaise Zabini. This was more than a bit weird. 'Not until you realize I'm right.'  
  
"JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Draco roared. He blinked. It was dark, he had finished washing all his clothes, and he was standing, alone and naked, up to his belly-button in freezing-cold ocean water. He shook his head. This was all Potter's fault. He needed to get back, he knew this. But...he was naked, and his clothes were wet. He threw on his undershorts, and started to walk back on the path he'd taken, painfully aware that there was no moon out tonight. The wind was blowing and the trees were groaning, and Draco found himself jumping at any movement in the woods around him. He looked down at his watch, which was magically illuminated, sensing the dark. 10.03. 'Shit,' thought Draco. 'Stupid Potter.' He quickened his pace, his shoes squeaking from his wet feet. A few minutes later, still walking, he began to panic. He saw a pinprick of light through the trees. 'Oh, thank Merlin,' Draco sighed in relief, and turned towards it. He picked up his pace to practically a jog. The light grew larger.  
  
*Wham*.  
  
Draco banged right into a tree, and he fell backwards, reeling. Hitting the back of his head again on the ground was enough to sprawl him out on the forest floor, his vision black.  
  
~*~  
  
Harry was beginning to worry. It was 10.30, according to his watch, and he expected Draco back. Sure, he was moody, but Draco wouldn't want to spend the night alone in the forest. 'He can't be far,' Harry thought, and sighing, he took his wand, murmured 'Lumos' and shimmied down the ladder and jumped to the ground.  
  
As he walked, Harry thought about Draco. Scrawny, short Draco who was never teased, unlike Harry. Savvy, witty Draco who always had to have the last word, even if it got him into trouble. Border-line neurotic Draco, who would change shirts after Herbology, always wore heavy leather lace-up shoes, pressed his ties in his larger textbooks during a particularly boring class and who panicked if he thought that he'd lose points for Slytherin. He was very much like Hermione at times, Harry thought, and it made him chuckle. He cut through the forest, his left hand outstretched in front of him to guard against trees, wondering why he was thinking so much about Draco. Harry saw the slim boy in his mind, hair so blond it was practically white, eyes the color of steel, lazy and uncaring and shrewd all at once, his long neck and arms, his graceful fingers and slim hands. Harry closed his eyes briefly, seeing Draco's satisfied smirk once he'd done something he thought everyone should admire and praise him for. As he thought more and more about Draco, he began to stop groping for the trees, and he tripped over something soft yet unmistakably solid. Harry went down, breaking his fall with his hands, and the thing beneath him moved gingerly, moaning. It sat up from a spread-eagled position.  
  
"Get the hell off me, Potter! You're like a ton of bricks!" Strong, delicate-boned hands shoved Harry onto his face and hoisted himself up, glaring down at Harry. Harry noticed he was wearing a plain pair of gray undershorts, and he turned his eyes hastily.  
  
"Why are you wandering around in the dark, naked?"  
  
"I'm not wandering," Draco snapped. "I went to wash my clothes and my hair, since I was disgusting. Now I'm back."  
  
"Why were you on the ground?"  
  
"Because it looked so comfortable," he replied sarcastically. "I was hoping that a Lethifold would get me so I wouldn't have to hang around this wretched bloody island with you, Potter. Now let's go back to the tree hut thing you call a shelter." Harry let out a derisive laugh.  
  
"You were lost, weren't you? Oh, that's too rich, Malfoy. You're lost and you don't know how to get back! You're too chickenshit to admit it, aren't you?"  
  
"I was not lost," Draco huffed. "Stop being such a wanker, Potter."  
  
"Not lost, eh?" Harry wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. "Guess I'll be going then." He turned; whispered 'Nox' and the two boys were plunged into darkness. Harry walked away a good twenty feet or so, until he stopped and crouched behind a tree.  
  
"Very funny, Potter," Draco drawled, from wherever he was behind Harry. "You're probably going to get lost out here and die." The footsteps were heading to the far left of where the camp was located, and Harry stifled a laugh. Draco's voice had raised an octave. "Potter, stop being a wanker. Come out here so we can go home, I'm tired."  
  
'Tired, huh?' Harry sniggered to himself. 'More like terrified.' To Draco, though, he shouted: "Hurry up then, Malfoy!"  
  
Draco began walking towards Harry's voice. Harry grinned. This was all too easy. Draco came closer.  
  
"Potter?" he asked, tentatively, trying to sound irritable. He wasn't fooling anyone, Harry smirked to the darkness. Harry stayed silent. Draco was only two trees away, and he walked forward shakily. Harry could hear the hesitation in each step the smaller boy took. He was almost splitting his face, he was grinning so hard. "Potter, did a Lethifold get you?"  
  
Harry slid his trainer across dead leaves, making a slithering noise. Draco froze.  
  
"Potter, are you alright?" He stepped right next to Harry, who grinned again in the dark, and lunged, grabbing Draco's bare ankle and yanking him down. Draco let out the highest scream Harry had heard in a long time, and he threw his hands up over his throat. "Please, don't hurt me! Please, let me go! Let go let go, nice Lethifold, let go of me, please, POTTER! POTTER! POTTER, A LETHIFOLD'S GOT ME! PO- HARRY! HARRY, PLEASE, HARRY!" Harry was laughing silently, doubled over, as he threw his cloak over Draco's face, but he stopped laughing as he felt Draco heave underneath him. "Oh, Merlin, I'm going to die...HARRY! POTTER! HARRY!!" Draco was crying, Harry realized. He released him with a jerk. Draco Malfoy was crying, and it was Harry's fault. Harry threw his cloak off of Draco and grabbed him by the upper arm.  
  
"Malfoy, it's okay, it's me," he said, and Draco threw his arms around Harry, panicky and wet-faced.  
  
"Harry, there was a Lethifold, it got me, I'm dead, Harry..." Draco was whimpering and Harry felt disgusted with himself. 'Lumos', he muttered, and hauled Draco up.  
  
"Well, you're lucky, aren't you, Malfoy? Come on, up you go," he said. Draco wouldn't release him.  
  
"We have to get out of here, Harry," he sobbed. "It'll come back!" Harry didn't have the heart to tell him that it wasn't actually a Lethifold, that it was Harry. He didn't think Draco would take it too well. Instead, he cautiously put an arm over Draco's shoulders. Draco was clinging almost painfully to his hand.  
  
"Okay, let's go, Draco," Harry said. As he led the poor sniveling Draco to their treehouse, he become conscious that he hadn't even called him Malfoy. There was a burning hate in his stomach, churning, because in his mind he saw his father hanging Snape upside down, and he wanted to cry himself. Draco didn't make any coherent words as Harry pushed him up the ladder, climbed up himself, pulled it up, barred the windows, and helped Draco put on his shirt and get into his sleep-sack. He himself lay down on the other side of the room, but Draco started crying silently again as soon as he whispered 'Nox'.  
  
"Malfoy?" Harry asked quietly, into the dark. He was answered with a sniff. "Hey, it's okay. You're safe here. You know that they can't get up trees."  
  
"I was going to die," he managed, after a long silence. "I was going to die, and you stopped it."  
  
"Malfoy-" Harry began, but another shuddering inhale from Draco silenced him. "Are you okay?"  
  
"I..." He hiccupped, and Harry felt even worse, if it were possible. "Thanks."  
  
"Hey, no problem," Harry replied, faking cheer. "You would have done the same for me, wouldn't you?"  
  
"I probably would have hid up a tree and watched you die." Harry blinked. Draco sounded serious. "I can't sleep. Can't you light a candle?"  
  
"We don't have one."  
  
"Can't you conjure one?" Harry did so, and lit it with Lumos. Draco looked terrible, and Harry was awash with a new sea of guilt. His face was paler than usual, his eyes large and deep-set, his face shiny from crying. "Thanks," he said again. He was being awfully polite, Harry thought with a deeper sense of shame. And it was his, Harry's, fault that this bully had been reduced to a miserable little wretch, crying because the night was dark and the only other person on the island had terrified him out of his wits. Harry couldn't stand it.  
  
"Malfoy- are you sure you'll be okay?"  
  
"I can't sleep. I would have died, Harry. I would have died." Draco seemed to have forgotten Harry's surname. Harry shimmied out of his sleep-sack and scooted over to Draco. He laid a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder.  
  
"You're safe, Malfoy," he said gently. "I'm going to stay up and make sure nothing hurts you."  
  
"What?" He blinked. "No, Harry, don't."  
  
"Yes," Harry said firmly. "Now sleep. You're weak enough, you've got to. Nothing'll get to you while I'm here."  
  
"Harry," Draco repeated, simply. He put his hand over one of Harry's and closed his frightened eyes. It took about thirty minutes for his breathing to become even, and Draco slept.  
  
Harry wept the entire night, looking at this boy and knowing that Snape had been right about him, all along. 


	3. Land and Water

The Way It Grows  
  
Springfall  
  
A/N: Thanks to all my lovely, lovely reviews! You brighten my day ^_^. I'm so glad people enjoy my madness. Keep on reading!  
  
~*~ Part Three  
  
Land and Ocean  
  
~*~  
  
~*~  
  
Day 3  
  
~*~*  
  
Draco rolled over and opened his eyes. Light poured in through the cracks between the walls, though the block window, falling in a large square on the floor by his chest. He was vaguely aware of something under his head, which moved when he did but was sturdy; strong. There was a dry heat also, under his palm. He looked down and saw a dirty pair of jean shorts, his finely-boned hand cradled against Harry's tanned, calloused one.  
  
Draco sat up abruptly. Yes, that was Potter, and Potter's thigh. Why was he asleep on Potter's thigh? The boy was sitting against the wall, head back, asleep. His glasses were pushed up onto his head, his hair being held back by them. His scar was clearly visible, pearly and stretched taught, puckering from his other smooth bronzed skin, right over his where his left eye began, nicking into his eyebrow the tiniest bit. His mouth was open, and his breath was a bit on the ragged side. Draco blinked at him, and memories flooded him from last night.  
  
Forest. Lethifold. Potter. Tears. Draco scooted away from him. Embarrassment heated his cheeks to a warm glow. That wasn't possible, was it? That Harry Potter had stayed up all night over Draco? He studied the boy's face. It was tanned, with that bleached-out, brownish hair, dun at the shaggy tips. He looked a bit puzzled. When had Harry gotten freckles? This was new. But there they were, little brown sprinkles across his rounded cheeks and over the bridge of his nose. There were dark shadows, bruised purple rings under his eyes. There was a mole on his right cheekbone, under the corner of his eye. There was another next to his Adam's apple, Draco noticed with faint interest. Dark blue stubble had appeared on Harry's chin, looking more like dirt than facial hair. When had Harry gotten facial hair? Draco touches his own face, smooth still, and frowned again. Stupid Potter. His eyelashes made dark crescents over his cheeks. Draco saw the delicate blue veins in the boy's eyelids, and the dark, rough-looking arches of his eyebrows. He could even see the pulse under Harry's jaw. His gaze stopped on Harry's lips, soft and almost pouty, a dusty sort of rose. He had a deep cupid's bow, Draco noticed, His bottom lip was full, larger than the upper, and had a soft dimple in the middle of its dusky roundness. Draco shook his head slightly, and his eyes raked back up over his face, up the short nose that turned up a bit, he saw, less than Pansy's but in the same general way, and fell again on those closed eyes.  
  
Those eyes, everyone in the wizarding world knew those eyes like they knew his scar. And yet, Draco couldn't remember the exact color. He knew that they were light- weren't they? But whether they were blue or green, he didn't recall. They were striking, he knew that, and shut his eyes briefly. Green, it came to him. They were green, like Draco's Quidditch robes, like the emerald that set in his ring he wore on his index finger, green like the forest around them and the soft grass below, green like the earth. Draco thought about his own eyes. Gray like a stormy sky, when the sun never showed, like metal and winter and angry, cold places you didn't want to be, but were there all the same. Hate and bitterness, in his eyes. Nothing serene, nothing secret, nothing safe. They were shrewd and guarded, the same way that Harry's were open and accepting. Draco swallowed his bitter disappointment.  
  
Harry was not, Draco noted with grim satisfaction, the same kind of handsome; Draco was all grace and long fingers and serious countenance, with fine hair and features, refined and sculpted. Harry was a more solid, square type, a classical sort of handsome, like Greek sculptured busts of Gods and heroes. He was something to look at, Draco thought, but he wasn't the same league as Draco. He had the body of an athlete, while Draco had the languid, flowing body of a cat. Not much use in battle but sharp as an arrow and twice as quick. Draco's mind was, indeed, his strength. 'It has gotten me this far', he thought severely. 'It'll get me everywhere I'll ever go.'  
  
Draco rose, pulled on his ripped-yet-clean corduroy shorts that hung to his kneecaps, and looked once at his polo shirt, curled a lip, and descended the ladder. He looked at his watch. Noon. No wonder he was hungry. He made his way back to that little cove he had discovered the night before, staying out of the woods, and stopped. He sat down on the sandy little beach. He watched fish dart in the clear aqua water below him. Fish. His stomach growled and he looked around, debating if he should try and have a go at catching them. He felt his pockets for his wand, and remarkably pulled it out. He tapped at a tree, saying 'Diffindo', and got the stick to sharpen itself into a pointed spear-like weapon. He admired his handiwork, and began trying to stab at the fish. After a few unsuccessful tries, he managed to spear a bony, bright blue fish. He killed it, and left it in the water to prevent it from rotting.  
  
An hour passed and Draco had harpooned two larger gray fish, and left them to sit beside the smaller one. He was humming to himself as he stalked the fish, and didn't hear the footfalls behind him.  
  
Harry stopped where the forest broke, watching Draco moving in a crouched, long-legged pattern, hunched low to the rocks he was crawling over on one side of the cove, a spear clutched in one hand, his other crossing and weaving out between his legs as he stalked the fish, moving like a graceful crustacean across the landscape. He looked as though he belonged there, Harry thought, moving like one of the sea animals he was after, creeping along. In a fluid lunge he would strike, his spear going straight through the fish, and he would whip the spear out of the ocean, spraying water like falling diamonds catching the sunlight, hooting in triumph as the dark gray fish struggled, flopping, hopelessly impaled on the middle of that crudely made spear. Draco lowered the spear and pulled the helpless fish off, and broke its back with a neat crack. Harry winced inwardly as Draco tossed the fish deftly into the pile and set up stalking the rest of the school again. Harry walked forward onto the sand, barefoot like Draco.  
  
"That's disgusting, you know," he remarked, nodding at the dead fish soaking in the salt water.  
  
"That's our lunch, Potter," Draco replied, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. He hoped Harry wouldn't bring up last night; he still wasn't quite ready to accept that he spent the night with his head in Harry's lap, his hand on the other boy's. Partly because, well, it was Harry Potter; and partly because his stomach settled in a funny way when he recalled the feeling of Harry's warm hand under his own. "You eat fish?"  
  
"Guess I'll have to, won't I?" Harry sat down on the sand. "I think you can stop, now, there are plenty there." Draco shrugged, and Harry saw that his skin was darker than it had been last night. Freckles were appearing across his shoulders. "You're getting sun-spots on your perfect skin, Malfoy," he remarked. "Shouldn't you put a shirt on?"  
  
"Probably," Draco agreed. "But not when it's so bloody hot." Harry laughed, and walked up the slippery rocks, away from Draco. Draco watched him go, and then leapt lightly down to the sand, as the school switched direction. Harry's bare lower legs disappeared over a rise in the rocks and he was lost from view. Draco sat down by his fish. A smaller grayish fish swam closer, and nudged the recently-killed fish. Draco felt a pang of regret. Was this fish mourning the loss of its comrade? Did it even realize it was dead? Was it its mother? Its lover? Its friend, its leader? Was this small fish lost without the other? The fish examined the dead body of its fellow marine creature, and swam away again. Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. What was wrong with him? His emotions were in overdrive, since last night. He was glad Harry wasn't here to see Draco get emotional over a deceased fish. He heard a muffled yell, and he sprang to his bare feet, and was running although he didn't know why he cared what Potter was up to. He mounted the rocks and hoisted himself up over the crest of the pile of shale, and breathed out so soft that he barely heard himself. The word was carried away on an afternoon wind, to be born across the ocean and up into Heaven, tucked into where fate was tangled.  
  
"Harry."  
  
Harry lay, his eyes wide and dazed, his ankle twisted under him in a funny angle. Draco swore again and in a bound was down to Harry's level. He crouched after his jump and then straightened, and bent again to see Harry's ankle.  
  
"What happened, Potter?"  
  
"Slipped," Harry muttered, as he tried to sit up. He leaned against Draco, who stiffened a bit but still examined Harry's ankle. It had a large gash on one side, and it was swollen. When he pressed around the cut, Harry winced.  
  
"It looks sprained," Draco said. "You shouldn't have been climbing on wet rocks."  
  
"Okay, Madam Pomfrey," Harry grinned lop-sidedly. Draco glared at him, and pressed down hard on the swelling. Harry shouted in surprise and pain, and he smacked Draco's arm with the back of his hand. Draco shifted his arm, and something flashed green at Harry, and he blinked at it was gone again. There was a mole along Draco's jawline, he saw, a light tan color. Draco pursed his lips, thin and sloping lips, like those of a snake's. They were a pale pink in color. Draco still seemed so washed out to Harry, with his soft white hair hanging in his face, his pale eyelashes and eyebrows. His eyes were the darkest thing on his face, and even they were a faded kind of gray. Out by the ocean they looked almost blue. It was a remarkable color. Harry wanted to say so, he wanted Draco to go look at his reflection, he wanted Draco to realize how beautiful his eyes were, how they made his features come together in a wonderfully delicate heart- shaped face, haloed by that hair...  
  
Whoa. Rewind.  
  
Harry shook his thoughts. Where had that come from? It was Draco Malfoy. Not Cho, not Hermione, not even Ginny. Draco. Why was he thinking about Draco's eyes as beautiful? Why was he comparing his hair to a halo? Why was he...why were Draco's hands so soft? Harry jerked his leg away and immediately wished he hadn't. The pain hazed his vision, and Draco sounded worried.  
  
"Potter, you alright?"  
  
"Yeah." He replied, shaking his head again. "Yeah, I'm fine."  
  
"We ought to put that foot of yours in the water.," Draco announced. He helped Harry to his feet, the taller boy leaning heavily against him, and they made their way back to the beach, slowly, together. They went around the rocks, up onto the grass, and back down the sand. Draco made sure his fish were still there, and he set Harry's foot gently in the water. Harry hissed and attempted to draw it out, but Draco's grip was firm and he held the larger boy's foot there for a good five minutes, Harry muttering under his breath the whole time. Finally, Draco slackened his hold from Harry's calf and the boy yanked his leg away. "Oh, stop being such a baby, Potter. Let me get my fish and we'll go home." Draco stooped to pick up the dead fish, and Harry noticed with a painful jolt below his ribs that you could count Draco's vertebrae. 'Doesn't he eat?' Harry thought. He struggled to remember, and he seemed to see Draco simply sitting at the Slytherin table, picking at his food. Harry frowned. Draco wasn't going to starve to death while he was here. Harry knew far too well what it meant to be hungry, and he didn't want anyone to feel like that. At least Malfoy wasn't locked up under the stairs, he thought, as Draco put his shoulder under Harry's armpit, and Harry looped his arm across Draco's back. Draco was smaller, but he was strong, without a doubt. Harry had seen the traces of muscle on his stomach and chest while he fished. And, looking at himself, Harry knew that being skinny didn't make you weak. He limped, leaning on Draco, as the two boys made their way slowly back to the treehut. Harry laughed out loud, thinking about what Ron and Hermione would say, seeing them see this picture: Harry, gimping, his arms around Draco who was shirtless, barefoot, salty and dangling four dead fish from the hand not wrapped around Harry. He snorted again, helplessly, and Draco arched a pale eyebrow.  
  
"What is so funny, Potter? Would you like to gimp home on your own devices?"  
  
"I was just thinking about Ron and Hermione," he replied. "What would they think if they saw this?"  
  
"Weasley would probably break his neck tripping over his feet to save his boyfriend," Draco sniggered. Harry frowned.  
  
"He's not my boyfriend," he said, and Draco snorted.  
  
"D'you expect me to believe that? I've seen the way he looks at you. EVERYONE'S seen the way you look at him. You can't fool me, I know the look," Draco spoke as though he knew exactly what he was talking about.  
  
"Ron isn't my boyfriend," Harry replied heavily. "He's dating Hermione, as it were. Not that it concerns you. He doesn't swing that way," Harry regretted the words the moment they left his mouth.  
  
"His brothers do," Draco said simply. "And what, he doesn't? You do?"  
  
Harry was silent. Draco smirked. "Hit a sore spot, did I?" Harry closed his eyes briefly, willing Draco to shut up. It didn't work. "I should have known! You tried it on with Weasley, didn't you? And he shot you down!"  
  
Harry turned, furious, and faced Draco.  
  
"Shut it, Malfoy," his voice shook in rage. "Just shut it. You've no idea what you're talking about."  
  
"What're you going to do, gimp at me?" Draco was laughing, his eyes slitted in mirth. Harry lunged, Draco side-stepped, Harry fell. Draco smiled easily down at him. "Don't worry, Potter. Your secret's safe with me." He offered a hand down to Harry. Harry took it, thought briefly, and yanked Draco down on top of him. Draco was startled he had been pulled off- balance, and more startled that he was now laying on Harry. Harry's voice was low, and there was a trace of something there. Regret? Anger? Something deeper.  
  
"I don't see why you're taking the piss," Harry said. "When you're in exactly the same boat as I am."  
  
Draco stopped laughing.  
  
"W- What?" Harry simply looked at him, not smirking, not smiling, just looking at him. His eyes were open, and sincere. Draco was embarrassed by the honesty he saw there. It was almost heartbreaking. "Potter, what-"  
  
"It's alright. I'm not going to tell anyone."  
  
"There's nothing to tell," Draco said sharply, irate. What was Potter going on about? He didn't know anything. Nobody knew about that. Draco kept his secrets safe. Unless... "Where do you think you heard this?"  
  
"Blaise Zabini isn't so quiet when she's drunk," Harry shrugged, underneath Draco's weight. "Is she?"  
  
Draco turned red. "You-" he spluttered. "Bollocks. You're lying."  
  
"Am I?" Harry shrugged again, and Draco was painfully aware of his chest against Draco's. "I think it's nice, personally. Ginny Weasley and you, you'd make a nice couple. Though Ron would kill you." Harry looked at Draco for a reaction.  
  
Draco laughed in relief, something else hiding behind that laughter.  
  
"I guess Blaise doesn't tell the truth when she's drunk, either," he said, over her chuckling. Harry blinked. "I don't fancy Ginny Weasley, or any other Weasleys, for that matter. I have never fancied a Weasley. I will never fancy a Weasley. Sorry to let you down, Potter," and Harry did, indeed, look faintly disappointed. Draco got off of Harry. Harry looked even more disappointed at this, and Draco raised an eyebrow. "Sorry I left?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You look...ah, whatever, come on Potter. My fish will rot." He helped Harry up and braced himself against Harry, supporting the injured boy. Harry sighed softly. Draco mirrored it.  
  
"I think we're both caught up in our own thoughts, Malfoy," Harry said, laughter in his voice.  
  
"So it would seem, Harry." Harry nearly tripped over his own feet, in the wonder of it all.  
  
"Draco," he said slowly, trying out the name, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were growing fond of me."  
  
"Potter," Draco replied levelly. "Shut up."  
  
Harry complied with a smile. 


	4. The Monster That Lives in Your Dreams

The Way It Grows  
  
Springfall  
  
A/N: Angst, angst, sadistic evil character abuse! Hooray! Wait, let me rephrase that. Merciless, evil, sadistic Draco abuse. My favorite kind :). And a tiny bit of Harry-angst. And now, you'll find out why Draco hates the night so much. Ideas borrowed from the wonderful Cassandra Claire (Hellhounds) and inspired by the utter brutal song by Maroon5, 'Harder to Breathe'. Oh, it has a happy tune. But go look at those lyrics. I guarantee you'll get chills from it.  
  
~*~  
  
Part IV  
  
~*~  
  
The Monster that Lives in Your Dreams  
  
~*~  
  
Draco sat in the dark, his legs pulled close to his chest, listening to Harry's breathing. He was muttering under his breath, and Draco was listening to the words. Every once in a while, he could pick one or two out:  
  
"Cedric...Cup...Cedric...Mum...You...Mum, Dad, Expecto...Siri...us..." Draco slouched back farther, his back hitting the rough wood, prickling and sticking beneath his thin polo shirt. He didn't want to hear this. As he sat here, listening Harry talk openly, he felt as though he was hearing something so private, it was like a mental diary. Seeing something like a broken boy, naked and beaten, crying. Too much raw emotion. Harry hiccupped and Draco felt a guilty writhe in his stomach. Harry was crying softly now, and Draco shifted again, not wanting it to continue. He was reminded of himself when he was young. Harry hiccupped again and murmured, "Sirius," and then went silent. Draco waited for about two minutes, noticing that Harry didn't seem to be breathing. He rocked forward onto his knees and crawled across the floor to Harry, and sat back on his heels by the boy's shoulder.  
  
"Potter?" he asked, timidly. He reached out for Harry. "Hey, Potter, you okay?" He dropped his hand onto Harry's bare shoulder, and squeezed gently.  
  
Harry flew up into a sitting position, and struck out, hitting Draco across the face, hard, sending the smaller boy reeling back. His eyes were open, blindly, and out of him came an ethereal howl, wild and frightened and fierce, and he began clawing at Draco, his eyes cloudy and dark, that high-pitched scream ripping through the silence and tossing it aside like a child's limp rag doll, shattering Draco's soul as Harry stopped striking him and instead grabbed his own hair in fist, tugging, keening harshly like a wounded animal. Draco backed rapidly away from Harry, his hand wiping his face as though he'd been touched by something impossibly dirty. Draco couldn't stand, he couldn't get his legs to function, to get up underneath him, hoist his shaking, tremulous weight to his feet, he simply reversed until he struck the wall, and he continued to clutch at his face, wide- eyed, pupils stretched wide like voids of black, fingernails scrabbling at his skin, feeling them bite into his cheeks and forehead, and a low wail rising from within him deep as Harry continued to scream, striking blindly around him, the shrieks almost unbearable. He sounded so distinctly like the hellhounds.  
  
Draco was transported back nine years, to the age of seven, to the little boy hiding under his covers in the night, listening to the baying of the fierce black dogs, with their eyes like coal and their prominent shoulder blades, their whip-like tails and their sharp spines and violent ribs, teeth shining white in a mouth like blood. The dogs prowled the house, scratched and wailing at his door, and his mother would sometimes come and hold him to her, her face buried in his hair, and he would press his face into his mother's soft breasts and holds her dress tightly balled in his fists, crying against the silk of her housecoat, and the two would sit sobbing in the darkness, the hellhounds bounding past them. But sometimes, his mother wouldn't be there. And it was when he was seven that Draco went out to look for Narcissa that his greatest fear became reality.  
  
Since he was small and heard the hellhounds, he never thought of them so much as petrifying dogs as he did tormented souls, ghosts cursed by some vengeful god to wander the Earth, seeking out the innocents to feed their insatiable appetites. Not seeing them, one would have thought his imagination would have painted a worse image of the hellhounds than they actually were.  
  
One would be wrong.  
  
Young Draco, searching for his mother's comfort one night his father was out hunting with the hellhounds, opened his door to the dark halls of the family manor, and set down the corridor, padding in small bare feet, clutching at his ears, trying to block the noise of animals being ripped apart by the horrible dogs. In the night, the house was different and two flights of stairs and three wrong turns later, Draco was hopelessly lost. He began to panic, turning corners in a frantic rush, running across dark, thick carpets and smooth wood floors until he flung open a door which closed behind him, and he found himself in a high-ceiling stone room with one huge stain-glass window, set with a large mahogany table, ten chairs around it.  
  
The Grand Hall, his mother called it, and forbid him to play in it lest it anger Lucius. Draco walked in, footfalls making no noise on the soft green carpets, looking for a way out. He could hear only his heartbeat pounding in his ears and his own ragged breath. He stopped. Was it only his breath? Did the floor just shift behind him? Draco held his breath, not daring to turn around. He heard the slavering licking of monstrous lips, the clicking of five-inch canines, and slowly little Draco turned on his heel and faced the monster he had heard since he was born.  
  
Towering over Draco was the huge beast of his father's, called Diablo, eyes like fire and mouth like an open, gaping wound, its tongue lolling out like some ripped muscle from a bone. Draco had opened his mouth, clutching his face against the animal's attack, other hand going to his throat. He backed away and Diablo stepped to where he had been standing. Diablo's paw was as big as Draco's head. Draco finally made a strangled sound and bolted, and this is when Diablo sprung, lunging at the child and snapping at his tiny body with a rotting mouth. Draco ran towards the table and scrambled onto a chair, and finally onto the long wooden table, soft beneath him. The window was before him, serene with a green dragon spreading its wings over a poor human village, roofed with brilliantly yellow thatch, a flame from its gaping maw incinerating those steady wood structures. A maiden dressed in red with a snake curling around her arm sat on the dragon's back. 'Priscus Cruor', the window read in old script, 'Ancient Bloodshed'. Draco hated that window, with its smiling blond woman who looked like his mother, the green dragon destroying her home with a breath of fire and her not caring, not seeming to notice at all. And it was supposedly noble, to be like that woman. Draco continued to hug himself, staring at that foolish smiling woman, wondering if she meant it. Meant to let her home burn. Perhaps she wanted something more from life, Draco had wondered. Perhaps they were cruel to her. Lucius had always said that the woman was in no wrong, for she had called on her true family, the dragon and the serpent, the strong and the wise. And slowly, as though in a trance and he knew it was coming all along, Draco watched the skeletal animal clamber up over a chair and leap onto the table, bunching up the green silk runner, and suddenly Draco was screaming for his mother, 'Mummy! Mummy!' over and over, and the dog was crouching low, and Draco's voice grew high and terrified and he was yanked off the table just as the dog lunged at him, jaws bared. Draco was pressed against his father's warm, sticky hunting tunic as his father roared: 'Avada Kedavra' and the dog dropped lifeless onto the tabletop. Lucius had turned on his son then, gloved hand raised and struck him in the exact place Harry had, back in the tree-house with sixteen-year-old Draco. He had beaten the boy until he was trembling and sobbing, dripping with blood from the strap his father kept on the wall for use on house-elves, swearing at the child for provoking his best hellhound, his eyes glowing an angry, evil sort of orange, the same as the hellhounds. Draco had trembled in the dark and his father had roughly thrown him back into his room, and had not allowed anyone to patch Draco up, letting his deep, painful wounds heal slowly. Lucius would ruthlessly grab the salt-shaker from a house-elf every time he laid eyes on his son that fortnight, and would smother the slices in his son's chest and stomach with the stinging, burning mineral until Draco would cry for pity, tears streaming from his eyes as blood streamed from the cuts. He ceased, finally, after a beseeching Narcissa claimed that the boy was truly repentant. Draco still had those four cuts along his chest, running in crosses across his pectoral muscles and ribcage. The marks on his back had all but healed. The deep pearly wounds on his chest would not vanish, no matter how much balm or magical remedies he would try to put on.  
  
Draco shook his head and realized that the low weeping in the room was coming from him. Harry had stopped screaming and was sitting, dazed, rocking. Draco could barely breathe, though as he sat, he stopped overheating, his breath calmed, his blood desiccated, his tears dried. He still saw Harry rocking and crying, shoulders heaving, and in a fit of indignation Draco managed to haul himself to Harry's side, damning his father and the stained glass woman, blaming them, blaming himself, and he put his arms as far apart as he could and leaned forward, as best an embrace as he could manage, this slumped position against Harry, arms finding the boy in the dark, fingers clutching at him, fingertips digging almost painfully into the skin of Harry's back. And after a shuddering breath Harry too flung out his arms and crushed Draco unreservedly against his wet face, gripping Draco just as hard as Draco was hanging onto Harry, and the two boys sat there in the dark, crying and clinging onto each other, slipping to the floor as a unit, their tears melting away in each other's comfort, sleeping, if not soundly at least deeply, intertwined.  
  
~*~  
  
Harry woke first, woke early, and wondered why there was this soft white-gold hair beneath his chin, why his arms were around this little beacon of warmth, why there were slim fingers holding his arms, legs entwined with his own, and why a breath blew against his shoulder in a steady rhythm, light eyelashes brushing his skin in a touch so fine it was barely real. He jerked, once, haphazardly, unintentionally. He stopped, hearing Draco's breath pattern switch with the movement. Slowly, after a long moment in which Harry was painfully aware of every inch of Draco against him, he untangled himself from the smaller, frail-looking boy in this pre-morning light warm against his skin like murmured words of love. Harry blinked. Love? What was he thinking? Last night was a red-tinted blur. He shook out his tangled hair and slipped out of the treehut, wincing as his foot touched the ground, roughly two seconds before Draco rolled over, eyes open, thinking about what he needed to do. Silently, Draco dropped from the treehouse, and followed silently after Harry, more like a cloud's shadow than a boy.  
  
Harry felt a bit guilty for leaving Draco there, but he needed some time to think. Obviously, something monumental had happened last night, and Harry didn't know what. He was panicky, he knew that, but what if...Draco had meant what he said about...  
  
'Stop,' Harry told himself sternly. 'He doesn't and you shouldn't, so stop.'  
  
"Not that easy, is it, Potter?" Harry blinked. Draco? Why was Draco talking to him? 'This is in your head,' Harry thought. 'Just don't reply, and he'll go away.'  
  
"What are you talking about?" Harry said, despite himself. He heard something shift behind him.  
  
"You. Me. Us."  
  
"There's no us, Malfoy." Harry said blandly. "You said so yourself, that it wasn't your thing. That's why you were taking the piss so much, alright? I know. I'm not stupid, despite me being a Gryffindor, despite you being an all-knowing Slytherin. There's no us, there's just me and you, and that is very different."  
  
Draco sounded hurt when he spoke again.  
  
"You assume too much, Potter. What makes you think that? Why do you think I've never had a girlfriend, with all the girls in Slytherin crawling all over me? Why do you think I don't dance at the Yule Balls, why do you think I barely speak to girls, why do you think I blush every time you smile at me, why do you think Weasley hates me so much more than Granger? Why do you think Blaise Zabini was so eager to spill my secrets before she, no doubt, lost her senses and stomach contents completely? Yes, I liked Weasley at one point, back in...second year. A lot happens in four years, Potter. You grow up and you learn things about yourself you never wanted to know, you never wanted to happen, things that shouldn't have happened to you, anyone but you, everyone but you. You don't know, your family doesn't support you as it is, they wouldn't give a shit either way, would they? You're not some sole heir to an estate. You'll go off and marry the Mudblood and have some filthy little half-breed children who will be so beautiful it'll break your heart, and it won't be because of Granger."  
  
Harry was so shocked at Draco's words, he didn't even realize that Draco had insulted Hermione.  
  
"And you'll laugh it off once I'm done talking at you, telling you things I can barely even admit to myself, things that no one should know about another person and now you know, Potter. Now you know. Are you happy? Now you can ruin my life. There wasn't much left to go. Go on, then. Go write to the Mudblood and the Weasel. Go tell the world. Impress them, be the hero, be the Boy Who Lived, The Boy Who's Straight, The Boy-Hero Of Muggles And Wizards Alike, The Boy Who Everyone Wants and No One Can Have. Go be Harry Potter, for Christ's sake," Draco spat, bitterly, his voice braking. "Go do what you do best. Go save the world. I'd rather stay here and die than ever look at you again. Go, Potter, go write to Snape, go back to Hogwarts, go defeat the Dark Lord, go marry Granger, go have babies, go have a full, long life. After all, that's your job. That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? Go live, Potter. Go live and let me die."  
  
Harry was silent and watched Draco walk away from him. He lunged forward, and grabbed onto Draco's upper right arm, spinning him to face Harry, Harry's grip firm yet gentle.  
  
"Draco," Harry said, weakly. Draco's eyes were watery and dark, and he yanked his arm feebly away. Harry held tight.  
  
"Let the hell go, Potter," he wailed. "Just let me go."  
  
"No," Harry said, his voice gaining strength. He yanked Draco towards him.  
  
"Why the fuck not?" Draco shouted, beside himself, tears escaping him, in anger and frustration he swiped them away with his left hand. "Get out of here, Potter, before I hex you!"  
  
"I would rather die," Harry said, "Than be the Boy Who Lived if it meant you wanted to die."  
  
"I don't think you can change who you are, Potter," Draco hissed, trying in vain to jerk his arm free. Harry tightened his grasp.  
  
"Neither can you," Harry replied simply. Draco gaped, open-mouthed, lips forming words that carried no sound. He stared at Harry, painfully, and dropped his gaze.  
  
"Let go, Harry," he pleaded- or as close to pleading Draco had ever gotten.  
  
"Will you come back?" Harry's voice was deceptively calm.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Do you swear?"  
  
"Oh for Merlin's sake, Harry-" Draco cried, trying to free his arm but subsided when he realized that it wasn't going to work. "Yes. I swear, I swear on the most noble and ancient house of Malfoy* that I'll come back. Now please, let me go."  
  
Harry released him, and Draco swayed, as though dizzy, until he turned on his heel as he had to face the Hellhound, and sprinted, wobbling, away from Harry until the sun rose in Harry's face and he had to look away. Looking back up, Draco had vanished. Harry stood watching the direction Draco had fled in for what seemed a long time- how long it was, no one could say for certain. It could have been five minutes, or five hours. Finally he turned and returned to the orchard, where he sat by the pool of fresh water, hurling small stones into the water, Draco's face flickering in every ripple, his eyes every gray pebble Harry tossed in prayer to the depths of that liquid soul.  
  
((A/N: Since Narcissa and Sirius were related, the 'Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy' seemed an excellent name for the Malfoy's estate; indeed, it appears an appropriate title for all old, distinguished families.)) 


	5. The Most Genuine Thing

The Way It Grows  
  
Springfall  
  
((A/N: I'm sorry, it's been so long! I promise I will try to update more regularly. Hope you like this chapter, thanks for all the reviews! Any suggestions and comments are welcomed and loved. This chapter dedicated to the DC song 'Carry This Picture'. See the lyrics, they make sense ^_^ Yours, SP))  
  
~*~  
  
Part V  
  
The Most Genuine Thing  
  
~*~  
  
Harry stared up at the dimming sky from where he lay in the field, next to the pool. He had not moved since Draco left him that morning. He was beyond angry at himself. He was beyond upset.  
  
All Harry felt was lonely.  
  
How had he missed it? The anger, the jealousy, the obsession Draco had to show him up no matter what it was in? It was so obvious it was almost painful. Harry rolled over onto his stomach. It was a ruddy sunrise, he mused, looking at the sun lowering over the line of the shore. A tropical plant was blooming, its large flowers feather-light and bright orange, their innards a glowing pink. Harry turned away, embarrassed by its honesty. Why was its life so simple? It budded, it bloomed, it was lovely and then it died. 'Is that what life really was like?' Harry wondered. 'Are we simply put here to bloom and be beautiful, until we die?' And if it was, then why was life so hard? That flower, it was so false, he thought again. It was so flashy, as though it were trying to compensate for something it was lacking.  
  
Wasn't he, Harry, lacking something? Wasn't Draco? Certainly, Harry was lacking- he thought of this with contempt- a family, anything dear to him at all. Draco still had both of his parents. Draco was rich, Draco was popular- Draco was, well... Draco. What could he possibly not have that he wanted? Draco had everything. That was, after all, what made him a Malfoy. What more could Draco want from life?  
  
'Love,' said that voice in the back of Harry's mind. It sounded surprisingly like Hermione.  
  
'He has love,' Harry replied. 'His mother and his father love him.'  
  
'That's not what I mean, and you know it,' his inner Hermione scolded him gently. Harry brushed at his fringe in irritability.  
  
"The first sign of madness is talking to your own head," Harry replied loudly. For how long he lay, sulking, he could not say, though he watched the sun spiral lazily across the sky, burning a path of painfully clear white light in its blue serenity. There were no clouds, Harry noted crossly. Not when his mood had a vindictive swing towards gray. He lay quiet again, watching two hours pass in the sun's path across heaven, when a tall shadow fell across him, barring his stomach and torso from the sunshine of the day's zenith. Harry turned his face upward, squinting from the sun that darkened the figure's features and blackened them from view. His first thought was Draco- who else would it be? But this was taller, much thinner, and almost frail-looking; the frame was lanky and lacking the same catlike grace Draco possessed; his hair was dark and his skin a sallow sort of ivory. He glared down at Harry with cold, dark eyes, once again giving Harry the fleeting image of tunnels underground. Harry sat up quickly.  
  
"P-Professor, I didn't know you were-"  
  
"Where's Draco?" Snape said in way of greeting, his eyes flicking around him without actually taking his glance from Harry. "Did you two finally end up killing each other, then? Or, did you kill him, in which case it will be far more than just detention, Potter-"  
  
Harry, knowing better than to interrupt Snape, let him continue.  
  
"I'm here to take you both back to school. Your Portkey was...misplaced, I see, careless boys," he held up a large dead fish, one of the grayish type Harry and Draco had eaten, the Portkey illuminated a faint green in its belly. "It is a Sunday. Are you prepared to leave?"  
  
"Don't I have detention tonight as well?" Snape's face wavered, and it was obvious to Harry that the potions master, however stern and unforgiving he was, was also at the moment severely confused and unorganized. Harry realized suddenly that Snape was not wearing his usual, everyday black; instead he had donned loose linen-like trousers in a heavy cream and an elbow-length tunic, the same sort of color as Harry's eyes. It was entirely unexpected and highly bewildering. Snape noticed his stare, but chose not to comment; his eyes simply conveyed the message that while he was not teaching, he need not confine himself to the stricter wardrobe he seemed to favour. He cleared his throat.  
  
"Yes, I know." He shifted a bit. "I have a Portkey for you; you are expected to return on Monday for your classes."  
  
"Severus," a low tone spoke from somewhere behind Snape. "It's holiday. Started Friday." Snape and Harry both yanked their heads around so fast that Harry felt a muscle pinch in his neck. He clapped a hand to it, wincing. Snape arched a thin eyebrow at Draco.  
  
"I believe you are to address me as Professor, just like everyone else," he rebutted coldly. His face softened at the edges, and Harry was sure that his eyes had lost some of their chill; Harry saw that the edge of his cheek and jaw had relaxed. "Draco...you look..." He did not finish his sentence on how Draco appeared to him.  
  
"Thank you, Severus. Now, the Portkey? I would like to get going," Draco extended a long-fingered hand, and Harry saw that Snape was right. He blinked, surprised that he had not noticed.  
  
Draco was tan; not like Harry's deep bronze skin, but a warm color, a mix of honey and sand. It was more color than he had ever seen in the boy before. His hair was shaggy and not slicked back, Draco having left his hair products at school, and hung in his eyes as fine and white as spider's web. His eyes seemed even more dark that ever, and more blue. They reminded Harry of Tom Riddle's eyes, calculating, although touched with a certain humor. Draco did not look at Harry. His shirt was off and his muscles had become undeniably more mature and defined; he had more freckles than ever across his shoulders. His legs were longer; his pants getting too short at the ankles and riding so low on his hips that Harry could see his narrow pelvis below his skin, hip bones jutting out at hard angles. There was no hair below his bellybutton, Harry noted, then scolded himself and dropped his eyes to the boy's feet. They were caked with dust from being in the water, and bigger than Harry had thought them to be. Draco stood with his strong arms crossed over his bare chest, and water sparkled in sporadic drops on his tanning arms. His hair was damp, Harry noticed, and was drying fast, leaving that silver sheen behind in favor of a pure white-gold, like tassels on the tops of ears of corn. He unfolded his damp arms and held out one hand, palm and pale underside facing up towards the glittering sun, waiting for the Portkey. Snape cleared his throat again.  
  
"As Potter pointed out," Snape said, still puzzled as he looked at Draco, "You still have detention to serve tonight. You will come back to Hogwarts tomorrow. You have managed excellently. It will be noted." A swift nod to Draco and no acknowledgement of Harry whatsoever except for the most brief glance he could spare, Snape handed the Portkey, a rusty old hammer, into Draco's waiting grasp, sighed lightly, and was gone with a sharp crack, like the fracture of a bone. Draco turned from Harry and began to walk away again. Harry scrambled to his feet and reached out to grab Draco's arm.  
  
"Hey, wait," he said, almost panicked as he pulled Draco around to face him.  
  
"What do you want, Potter?" Draco asked, disgust on his tongue, as he ripped his arm out of Harry's grasp. "You shouldn't touch fags, you know."  
  
"Don't," Harry said, a warning in his voice.  
  
"Don't what?" Draco mocked him. "Don't call myself a fag? Oh, but I am. I'm as queer as Trelawney! I'm a goddamn fairy! I can't get my hands dirty and I love the color purple, didn't you guess, Potter?" His tone was vicious as he flopped his wrists out in front of him, limp and cruel in the mockery. "Ooh, Pottah, can't you show me how to catch a snitch? I think I'm too much of a nancy to ride a broom without becoming horribly turned-on!" He glared at Harry, angry and upset and ready to cry. "Don't tell me what to do or not to do, Potter," he hissed. "I make my own choices."  
  
"Listen to me!" Harry cried, and in desperation he grabbed Draco hard about the middle, lifted him clean off of the ground, and slammed him onto his back on the soft grass. Draco looked shocked, and then furious. Harry straddled his stomach. "Listen to me. I have to explain myself."  
  
"Get off of me," Draco said, slapping at his arm. "I'll hit you with this hammer, I swear to God I will."  
  
"You will not. You're going to listen to everything I say." And so Harry began talking before Draco could get in another word.  
  
"You say all these things, Draco, about you being gay and a disappointment to your father and a shame on your family name, and all of these things that matter so much to you and don't mean a damn thing to me. I have never had a family name; the only reason the name 'Potter' is remarkable at all is because of me. And I hate it. I would rather be someone like Seamus or Dean who have never done anything admirable or brave. I would rather be like Cedric Diggory, than ever have to be Harry Potter.  
But I can never stop being who I am. I have to be who I am, I haven't got a choice. I wouldn't wish this on anybody else, this...curse that has been set upon me. I wouldn't want anyone else to have to live in my shoes. And you! You have everything you could ever want. Your mother adores you, your father is proud of you, you're rich, you're famous, you are beyond handsome...Draco, do you know how many people want to be you?  
  
"You can never stop being who you are. You can't stop being gay anymore than you can stop being a Malfoy. And would you really want to stop being a Malfoy, ever?"  
  
"No," Draco whispered, as if the word brought him pain.  
  
"Then you will be Draco Malfoy, and dammit, you should be proud to be Draco Malfoy. Gay or no. You have so many things going for you that the rest of the world will never have. Think about it, Draco. So many things that you should cherish, that you don't."  
  
Draco was silent, before he drew a shaky breath.  
  
"I don't have anything of my own."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"I am only Draco Malfoy, because I am my father's son. That is what makes me so unique."  
  
"Draco, you're brilliant. You're brilliant at school, you're brilliant on the Quidditch pitch, and you're brilliant at everything you try. And I am not just saying it. Everybody knows so. Even Ron knows so, because it's true, and you can't deny that. It just is. You have risen to every challenge the world has brought you, especially while we've been here. You've fed us. How could I have managed? You dragged me home after I hurt myself. Draco, everything bad that has happened to you while we were on this island is because I did it to you. I was the one who knocked you out on that day you kicked the Portkey into the sea. I was the one who threw my cloak over you. It wasn't a Lethifold. It was me, Draco. It was me." Harry let go of his arms and scrubbed at his face. "And you even comforted me when I had nightmares. You have never done a violent thing to me, you've never harmed me, though you have threatened, and I have been the one to beat you up. I'm just as bad as you always thought I was. You just never knew it. And I did it," he paused for breath, "Because if I didn't hit you, if I didn't scare you, I didn't think I would be able to look at you without crying from how good you actually are, and how I never saw it before now." Harry prepared for the yells, the curses, the hit from the hammer.  
  
He got nothing he expected.  
  
Draco smiled at him, the sun shining on his tan face. It was the most genuine smile Harry had ever seen. Harry's grip faltered on Draco, the force leaving him. He nearly sagged against the smaller boy, refraining simply because he wanted to see that smile. He didn't understand what was happening. Wasn't Draco angry? Why wasn't he acting like it? Why was he smiling at him like that? The flower glowed ethereal above them, watching the seen with all the beauty the coast could muster.  
  
"Forgive me, Harry," Draco said after a moment, "but I need to write a letter." And, still smiling, Draco brought up the hammer and thwacked Harry solidly on the back of the head.  
  
((A/N: sorry for the short chapter, but I have good ideas in store...hope you enjoy!)) 


	6. Nightswimming

The Way it Grows  
  
Springfall  
  
((A/N: I wanted to make this extremely passionate- and what is more serene than a beach at night? It was the perfect setting for soul-searching. It will be a very spiritual night for our boys :). The title is from a REM song, 'Nightswimming'. It is a beautiful song. I think it fits Draco and Harry in this point perfectly. A special thank-you to my yahoo buddy, Lady Katheryn Nightingale for all of her encouragement. This chapter is for her. As always, enjoy and review! I am updating so quickly because of the enormous response I got from the fifth part. Look for more soon! Yours, SF.))  
  
~*~  
  
Chapter VI  
  
Nightswimming  
  
~*~  
  
Draco stuck the nib of the improvised quill into his mouth and sucked. It was, in actuality, supposed to be a quill- he had transfigured a normal bird feather. It had not worked perfectly, and his nib was the same turquoise color that the feather had been, but Draco rather liked it. It was something unique and his own, and that was something he greatly needed right now, Draco thought grimly. In the fading light, it cast a faint neon shadow on the sand beneath his elbows, as he squinted down at the letter he had written out of berry stains, on the back of a detention slip. He surveyed his work with a critical eye.  
  
'Severus-  
  
'I would first like to apologize for my behavior this afternoon. I was caught off guard, to say the least, to see you here. The Portkey is in a safe place. I hope that I will not need to get another from you.  
  
'Secondly, I ask that you not mention to others that Potter is here on this island with me. I believe that only Blaise Zabini is aware of this. I am sure she has asked about me. If there is any possible way to keep Pansy from getting a hold of this information, I would greatly appreciate it. You know how she gets. When I say anyone, Severus, it includes my father. But I am sure that it has crossed your mind already.  
  
'Tonight and tomorrow morning, Potter and I will have finished collecting more than enough of the potion ingredients that we were supposed to. On my return, I am going to have to have a talk with you on taking the Sorting Hat's warning too seriously. Unity with Potter is not a particular strength of mine.  
  
'I wish you a good evening; we should be in no later than eight.'  
  
Here Draco paused, encountering an unexpected difficulty. Whenever he had written Severus in the past- usually over the summer holiday- he had never been this formal. This was writing a note to a teacher, no matter his personal ties. Draco though for a moment, before jotting down: 'Sincerely, Draco Malfoy' and folding the slip up and sealing it with his wand. Here, again, Draco stopped. How was he going to deliver this? He had no owl of any sort; he didn't think that there was a wizarding postal service on this island, somehow. Draco sighed and tucked the letter into the pocket of his trousers. He would deal with it later. He turned his eyes up to the sky, his thoughts clearing for a moment.  
  
It was beautiful here, he gave it that. He hadn't ever seen such a vibrant sunset, all reds and oranges and soft violets. It stained the water the same iris color of his parent's bedroom, back in his manor. It was an amazing sight, in a way. Draco had never seen such a sunset at home. He was reminded strongly of a time when he went on holiday to Madagascar- but this was very different. He had spent that whole trip crying from an earache at the age of six; he didn't appreciate little things like sunsets when he was young, impatient and hurting. The Northern Star was appearing on the horizon, and Draco thought that at this time, lunch must be just about over back at Hogwarts. He stretched his legs out in front of him. This beach calmed him; its serene green waters tinted a rich blue-violet by the sky, its sand warm. A crescent moon was rising south of Polaris, silver in its slim beauty. Draco sighed.  
  
He turned his slate-gray eyes, still that eerie blue from the water and sky that they had been during the zenith of the day, onto Harry, who was still lying on his back as if sleeping. Draco had dragged the heavier boy down to the water- for there was no doubt that Harry was now, indeed, heavier- and laid him gently down while he thought. Draco had not hit him hard enough to worry- he expected him to come around shortly. Draco stood, and removing his old tee-shirt, shorts and boxers, dropped them by Harry's resting place. He walked out to that velvety ocean and stepped into it, not minding that it was cooling rapidly as night fell. He watched the falcate moon rise as the sun sank, until the sun was gone except for a burnished glow smeared across the west, and the moon rested, cradled tenderly, on the horizon. Out to the small of his back, Draco stopped walking and lay back, letting the water catch him. He floated there, gentle and light, his hands paddling lazily in the still water. He spread ripples out alongside of him, turning the water into his own set of wings, though he did not know why they were needed. For all the times he had wished to fly away, this was one place that he would rather be over anywhere else in the world. Draco sighed, content, fluttering his fingers to give himself feathers in the aqua water. He did not see Harry stir on land, so enveloped was he in this nightswimming. He had never felt so free, the water flowing dark and pure about him, embracing him in cool, moving energy so mellow it was as though he was suspended in a state of vertigo. The island was absolutely silent. The only sounds that Draco could hear was the wind between the orchard trees, far away from his secluded cove, and the waves gently lapping against his body, his wings of ripples and waves spreading about him for what seemed like miles. He closed his tired eyes. 'If this is not peace,' Draco thought to himself, 'I shall never know it.' He was not fearful of being caught. The moon wasn't going to judge him, nor the millions of points of starshine, bathing him with light. It seemed to Draco that the world was blessing him, his spirit being soothed by the night. In that moment, Draco's fears left him. The darkness was doing for his scars what the balms never could. It was as though the water all around him was not water, not really; it was love he had never felt before. And it felt so simple Draco wanted to make some noise to shatter it- cry, scream, shout, sing, or laugh- but he could not bring himself to do any. His eyes were shut still, his eyelashes and hair bleaches whiter than the starshine against his darkened skin. A sigh escaped him, so soft that it was lost in the sky, the night not wanting the quiet to be lost.  
  
On shore, Harry awoke.  
  
~*~  
  
Harry's eyes opened, not slowly but not quickly either. He felt disjointed, a bit sore, and warm. He brought his hand up to the base of his skull, wincing as he found the large welt there. His memory was groggy, as though he had drunk butterbeer too fast, and he strained for clarity. It hurt to think so hard, and Harry shook his head. His eyes fell to the pile of clothing next to him, not folded, and tossed hurriedly as if the owner of them could not get them off fast enough. He looked across the sand, seeing the graceful footprints leading to the water's edge. Not so far out he saw something floating, arms and legs spread out in peace, looking as though it was sleeping without a care in the world.  
  
'Draco,' Harry thought, and he felt himself weakening. Inside him, a voice awoke. He pushed his hair roughly away from his eyes, and stood, swaying only a bit, determination rising. He was not going to be left behind on a night like this. The moon was low and the water like silk, and he was pulled with such vehemence to the water it was almost shocking to him, someone who had never had any real desire for nature like this before. All of a sudden, it seemed as his entire life depended on being in that ocean, being there with Draco, naked and under the quiet judgment of the sky. He wanted to bear his soul, along with his body. He longed to become a part of this moment in time. He wanted it to stop; just to he could remember it always like this. This feeling, this unending joy stretching before him as he tore his clothes from him, stepping out of it all as quickly as he could, something building in him as he ran silently, the sand whispering around his feet as he bounded to the water's edge. He was aware, dimly, that nothing about his movement was as elegant as he would like it to be, but somehow it didn't matter at this moment. He slowed when his feet were enveloped by water at a temperature he could not describe- not cool, not warm, but perfect. It felt like a zephyr on a summer's day. It did not matter it was not summer, to Harry. He waded out to where Draco floated, shamelessly naked. Harry looked at his heart-shaped face, and he could not stop himself. He touched Draco's cheek, near his jawline.  
  
Draco did not jerk, as Harry had suspected he would. Instead, he serenely opened his eyes, a dark, soft gray-blue, and looked up at Harry, standing there uncovered beside him, water about his hipbones. He closed them briefly, as if preparing to be ripped from this harmony he was in at present.  
  
"You woke up," he whispered in a low voice, that Harry barely caught. Harry didn't want to catch it. He wanted this quiet- he needed it. He shook his head.  
  
"Don't talk," Harry said. He moved backwards in a graceful arch into the water, not splashing Draco one bit as he was swathed with the ocean, arms' length away from the other boy. He mirrored Draco's position, and they floated there, Harry's glasses still over the bridge of his nose. Draco's eyes slid over to look at Harry, a question briefly flickering across his mind, until he thought better of it and just let it be.  
  
The floated there together, minds blank and blissful. How long they were there, neither could say. At one point in that hanging, timeless moment, Harry's watch stopped at ten minutes to midnight. It was as good a time as any. Finally, Draco broke the silence.  
  
"Harry, what are you doing out here?"  
  
"Donno," Harry replied. "I just had to come."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why not?" Was all Draco got in reply. He sighed and was, inexplicably, content with this answer. More time passed.  
  
"Harry?" Draco's voice was small, low in pitch and volume, as if the boy was unsure of himself as he spoke.  
  
"Mm?" Harry replied, in way of acknowledgement.  
  
"Did you mean what you said about me?"  
  
"All of it," Harry opened one eye and looked over at Draco. "Why?"  
  
"I was just wondering." Draco was quiet again, and then suddenly a wake of current bobbled him up and down, and a warm, water-silken hand closed over his. Draco blinked, and turned his head slightly, to get Harry into his vision. Harry's eyes were closed again, moonlight and starshine washing his hair to that dun color it had favored since they began to work here, changing him fully and yet not at all. Draco felt something jolt softly in him, below his ribs. He thought, perhaps, it might have been his heart. Though he would never admit that to himself. He squeezed tentatively on the hand holding his, and shut his eyes with a smile when it was reciprocated. There was nothing more to say, Draco thought. Harry seemed to share his mindset. It didn't matter, now. Nothing mattered. The letter to Snape in Draco's pants pocket was forgotten. Gryffindor and Slytherin, Seekers, Prefect, old animosity, insults, taunting, pranks and detentions and bickering- none of it added up to equal this gentle wonder of nightswimming. Draco got the distinct impression that a night like this happened only once in a lifetime, if you were lucky. It was a night of magic never captured by a wand or a wizard. It was a type of magic so deep and so cloaked in legend that it was thought lost to a normal person. He was sure, that had anyone seen them, they would not have understood. It didn't matter. Draco had this night. 


	7. Your Eyes

The Way It Grows

Springfall

((A/N: After popular demand, I'm back to finish this piece :-). Hopefully you all still want it! I have a question- I've heard a rumor NC-17 stories are no longer allowed on FFN- is this true? If so, no sex for Draco and Harry, I am sorry to say. If it's not true, though, I'm very pleased :-). Please let me know either way. If it is, then I'll probably write a supplement to e-mail everyone if they'd like it. Let me know in the reviews, and where I can reach you with it. Anyway- for now, enjoy!))

Part VII

Your Eyes

Draco opened his eyes. Sunlight filtered through the cracks in the siding of their hut and warmed bars across his cheeks. From the smell of the air passing through their space, it had rained that night. Funny. Draco couldn't remember seeing clouds. If he was honest, he couldn't remember seeing much more than Harry. Under his breath, dark hair fluttered. Draco opened his eyes wider.

Harry was there, chin tucked securely in the notch of Draco's clavicle, his eyes shut. From his angle, Draco could see little more of Harry than long, dark eyelashes dusting Harry's cheekbones like moth's wings on a light and the strong bridge of Harry's straight nose. Strong arms encircled his waist loosely, no doubt their grip fractured by sleep. Draco sighed as quietly as he could, trying to not disturb his ribcage. He was, in effect, leaning against the back wall of their shelter, Harry stretched out perpendicular, his lap and legs flush against Draco's. Draco felt color creep into his cheeks, though he made no move against Harry's body weight. He looked, almost dreamily, at the boy against him, and let his hands shift from where they were pressed into Harry's shoulder blades, his fingertips brushing back still-damp hair from his high forehead. Harry's hair had dried slicked-back from pushing it fretfully away from his face, and for a moment Draco thought how awfully confined it made him look.

How long he would have remained there watching Harry is hard to say, but for good or for bad- he was never quite certain which, thinking back on it- he was plucked roughly from his reverie by someone clearing their throat. He blinked and dragged his eyes from Harry's face, and let his gaze settle lightly on the person opposite him. His heart sank, frightfully trembling despite the warmth, as the black eyes of Severus calmly regarded him.

"You seem to be managing well," Snape remarked carefully, rearranging his legs beneath him, crossing them to support his weight. He looked haggard- as though he'd missed sleep the last few nights. His deep-set eyes were more swollen and sunken then usual, his hair rather unkempt and pulled away from his face messily. His face was pallid, his prominent nose casting a shadow across it, and Draco thought he looked terribly old. His thin arms went to wipe at his temple, where a bead of sweat had trickled; the old scar on his arm was still obviously black but slightly faded, as if it was blurring with time, graying with the idleness of disuse. "Bloody hot here."

"It's an island," was all Draco could think to say. Snape smiled, mirthlessly, and let his eyes flick to Harry.

"Making nice with Potter, I see," was all he said. His eyes said volumes more, but Draco thought recklessly that if he wasn't going to voice those thoughts, Draco wasn't going to bring it up.

"Nice enough." Snape's eyes flashed surprise and also a slight, misplaced pride. Draco nearly faltered at it. "What are you doing here?"

"Telling you to stay put, you and Potter both." Snape looked darkly down at his forearm as he rested his hands back against his knees; the skull's hazy grin mocked him and he tugged his sleeve down, nearly subconsciously. "There's been...there's been another attack at Hogwarts." A scowl crossed over his sallow countenance, and Draco was worried more at his face than at what he had said.

"On whom?"

"Second year. Don't know her name. Gryffindor." Draco felt his mouth twitch into a frown; he had a feeling that explained everything. Snape sniffed in distaste, as if thinking: Imagine attacking a second year. She's only eleven or twelve. Snape was quiet for a long moment. "The Headmaster is not sure if she is going to make it."

"What happened to her?" Draco found himself not really wanting to know. In his arms, Harry stirred. Snape noticed it. "Hold on. Let me- let me just-" Draco slid himself out from under Harry, leaving him curled on his side on the rough floor. He pulled on his dirty, torn trousers- he had, apparently, slept only in his boxer shorts. He stooped, ducking his fair head to escape the doorframe, and slung himself down to the ground. Snape followed somewhat less gracefully, brushing bits of bark from his tunic. Draco set off at a brisk walk, hands deep in his pockets. His silver brows furrowed, troubled. He shared Severus's sentiment- who would attack a second year?

"Not sure, for certain," Snape replied, taking his side easily, long strides covering soft grass alongside Draco's bare feet. "They think Cruciatis. Who administered the curse, they cannot be certain. The point is, the only evidence left by the assailant was a word written in- in red," his deep voice faltered. It worried Draco more and more each moment, this unexpected announcement. It was unlike Severus to falter or to sugarcoat. "Well, blood, they're saying. Just the one word on the sixth-year dormitory."

"They got into the dormitory?"

"That's why everyone is so worried, Draco." He sighed, and shook his head, looking up at the bright day. "You."

"Sorry?" Draco looked over at his sharp, hawkish profile. "Me?"

"No, not you; that's what was written. 'You'. On the sixth-year boys' door. You can see why I'm...extending your detention, shall we say."

"I see." A pregnant pause between them, loaded with unsaid questions and awkward assumptions. "Are you going to tell Harry?"

"No." It was hardly an answer- little more than a whisper caught and spirited away on a passing breeze.

"I thought not," Draco replied. "Leaving that to me?"

"In time. When you feel fit to say it. I daresay you're close enough to give him news of it."

"Don't start," Draco said, his voice a low warning. To his surprise and slight agitation, Snape chuckled.

"It's not my place what you do behind your doors," he replied, and in his voice there was understanding and a grudging blessing. Potter wasn't his favorite- far from it- but Draco was more than it. If it made him happy- it was risky and it would most likely end in tears, but for now- let them be happy and enjoy this time. In all honesty, Severus could not say with certainty how much time there was left for any of them. Life was fickle. It did not choose its victims depending on their epic stories. Even if they were legend. "I am returning now- I'm needed. Doubtless we'll run into each other again," he said, responding to the look on Draco's face. "Try- try not to worry. It's like telling the rain not to fall, but- there's not much else for it. For the meantime, it's safe. I'll be keeping in touch." He smiled then, and reached out with a cold hand and touched Draco's cheek, briefly. He dropped his fingers with a start, as if embarrassed at too much expression of affection, and with a sharp crack like wood splitting, he was gone.

Draco remained where he was for a moment, hands still in his pockets. Well. Turning without thinking, he made his way to the cove where he'd caught fish and where they'd been swimming the last night. For lack of any other answers, Draco sat heavily, crossing his knees, propping bony elbows on soft kneecaps. The sun beat on his bare back, warming his skin, though goosebumps remained from Severus's words. An attack. Another attack. And in a dormitory, as well. The only suspects would be Gryffindors. There was, of course, the culprit Snape didn't need to say; everyone knew and whispered in low voices the very real threat of Voldemort. He was so vague and tiresome to Draco. He'd never seen him, though he had heard his voice very late at night when he thought the mansion was asleep. He was no more threatening then a murderer a long way from home. He knew it wasn't so for most people- but he wasn't most people. He thought, with a wan, grim sort of humor, about how upset Weasley must be. He did not turn his head at any sort of birdsong; the day seemed dimmer, though for him the threat was equally far removed. It was strange- he ought to be worried, his close proximity to Potter putting him at a very real threat. He wasn't. He was simply quiet and thoughtful, the waves in a steady rhythm that didn't reflect his tides of thought. More fearsome and looming a danger than Voldemort was the boy who he was trying to kill.

Harry. How was Draco supposed to look Harry in the face after this? Harry, who had seen him crying, and now naked- Harry, who had rested his head against Draco's own chest and let their heartbeats match to find sleep- how would he speak this morning? Would they be the same- would everything have changed? Nothing had passed between them- except for the almost tangible exchange of trust and comfort. It was more intimate than anything Draco had experiences; more than any sweat-slick night with those boys without names. More than that only night with Pansy, which, long after he had slipped from her sticky bed, leaving her asleep and himself weak and shaking, had left dissatisfaction and fear in the back of his mouth and mind. Harry scared Draco in a way Voldemort didn't- more than his sexuality, more than his father's wrath. What happens next? A tiny and unsure part of Draco questioned. He did not have the answer, and so Draco shoved it away, pushing it down and binding it up until he summoned the courage to face it. Which, Draco thought with a feeling of quiet disdain that showed on his face, would probably never occur. After a time, Draco's fears ceased chasing each other round and round his brain, and all Draco could seem to summon to mind was Harry's face, with strong white teeth and round, brown cheeks, grinning without any qualms or hesitations. Green eyes set with heavy lashes questioning, bringing him out to seize the day. Somewhat. Life had gotten a lot more enjoyable here on this island with Potter, crying and hitting each other and all the actions and glances and unspoken things in-between the concrete events. It was exciting- it was strange, it was frightening, it was _real._ It was hard to control his smile and even harder to control his mouth or his hands. It was hard to tear his eyes away from Harry's. A shadow fell across him and he turned, looking up into the brown face that haunted him while he was still waking.

"Sleep well?" Harry's voice was choked oddly, as if restraining himself from saying something else instead.

"Well enough," he replied, though in his heart all he could say was 'better than any time I can remember, please let's do it again and again without needing to say any words'. Harry slumped down beside him and pressed his knees together, long legs and naked shins splaying out with bare ankles and dirty soles supporting calf muscles, pointing to the water.

"Why did you leave so early? I woke up and you were gone."

"I couldn't sleep." Well, that was true. Snape's stare was hard to sleep through- Draco could never sleep with someone watching him. Harry wouldn't know- Harry hadn't been woken up that way before. Lucky for him.

"I could sleep forever, really." Harry didn't look at him, shifting nervously in the sand. "I'm always so tired."

"Maybe you're anemic," Draco suggested with false cheer. "It does happen."

"Cheers, thanks a lot. You're so thoughtful and correct- what would I do without you?" His voice was light but still he did not meet Draco's eyes. Draco shifted his weight as well, body taking up the nervousness Harry exuded.

"Die, probably."

"Tragic end to a real love story for the ages," Harry laughed, finally, some of the tension broken.

"Except without the love." Harry lay back, flopping his arms up on either side of his face, watching a cloud float lazily across the blue bowl of the unchecked sky.

"Maybe with love," he said, voice carefully light again. "Who knows? Maybe with love. Everyone's got love to give. Any old seagull, really. That seagull right there could be the love of your life, Malfoy. Go give it a kiss."

"Go fuck yourself." The growl was playful, and tension was rapidly fleeing the beach, driven back amongst the trees with the rest of Draco's worries. His rain cloud was taking a holiday for itself. It was welcome to stay away long as it liked, he thought.

"I would, if I had the privacy."

"We're marooned on a bloody desert island, Potter. I think there's a good chance to find some privacy." Harry laughed and finally, decidedly, looked over at Draco. Draco looked back. "Go on, then, Potter. Go enjoy your company of your hand. You're right- a classic love story to transcend the ages. Potter and his right hand."

"And you and your right hand, as well."

"Left."

"Oh, forgive me." Harry smirked roughly, punching Draco in the arm. "Left hand, my mistake."

"I ought to get compensation for having to deal with such an idiot all hours of the bloody day and night." Draco leaned back on his hands, palms sinking into the white sand, hot and clean. Harry suddenly seemed smaller, shyer, his playful look mingling and altering into something deeper.

"Okay," he conceded, looking highly tremulous. Draco saw his fingertips trembling a tiny bit.

"Okay? Okay- you can go and start a fire, and get the fish, and haul your ass up a plantain tree, and boil water, and-" Draco stopped talking. Harry had leaned forward and his hand was behind Draco's head, fingers tangling into the baby-fine silver hair at the nape of his neck. His knees where coated in the sand and he crouched on the balls of his feet, rocking precariously. His green eyes burned into Draco's own surprised orbs of blue-gray. It seemed, in that moment, all Draco could see was green- all he could see was Harry. "H- Potter, what are you doing?"

"What I n- what I have to," Harry's voice was husky. "I can't get through life with just a right hand, Draco. It's impractical. I'll never get anything done- I'll just go in circles. I can't live my life right-handed. I need a left hand, too." He closed the space between them, and Draco felt warm lips meet his.

It wasn't like he imagined. He felt heavy and he felt awkward- skinny and pretentious. Harry rested on sand-caked knees, one hand on Draco's thigh, the other on the back of his neck. Draco's hands hung limply and uselessly at his sides, too feeble and foolish to work properly when Draco desperately wanted them to. His mouth was open in surprise, and Harry took advantage of it; Draco thought that no one's tongue ought to be so light and be so manipulative. Harry's fingertips dragged from Draco's hair to cup his narrow chin, pointing his angular face up to the sun, his mouth hot and gently convincing. If he hadn't known better, Draco would have thought that Harry was the one who knew what he was doing. Draco let Harry explore his mouth, though he seemed to, frustratingly, be unable to get his body parts under control and cooperative. It was if they were telling Draco to stop thinking so much and to just start savoring the moment. The moment Draco's muscles relaxed, Harry pulled him closer.

Love story for the ages, indeed.


	8. Anywhere from Here

The Way It Grows

Springfall

((A/N: Hello and thanks for the patience- I've been in and out of the hospie with mild pneumonia and my sleep pattern's all messed up, so here I am updating around midnight. I couldn't get any of the websites to work and so I couldn't read any slash but I could write some- so I am :) Thanks for sticking with me; hope you enjoy! Make sure to let me know in a review if you're wanting the sex scene, since I cannot post it here; I will email it out as an anecdote to the action. It will take place outside of the storyline so if you don't read it, you won't miss anything. Well, besides smut. :) Anyway, enough of me rambling. On with the next part! Title is from 'Run' by Snow Patrol. Expect it to heavily influence the next few parts. All my love.—SF))

Part VIII

Anywhere from Here

They broke apart, awkward and panting. Harry's hands trembled on Draco's thighs, and he dropped them to his own lap, ashamed of himself. He felt Draco's newly-slack body stiffen with dread and panic flooded his mind in broken, clamoring, high-pitched frequency. Harry's eyes darted, on everything but Draco. _What am I doing?_ he thought, searching desperately for an escape route, latching onto any shred of normalcy left between them. "Em, so, I'll just go and get firewood, shall I?" He scrabbled to his feet; it seemed to take him longer than usual. Behind Draco's head, tropical hyacinth bloomed, orange and important with itself. It cast a strange halo behind the head of the confused, fair-haired Draco.

"You can't be serious," he muttered, staring without comprehension at Harry. "You- Potter," his voice was tiny, small and exasperated as if with a child. "Okay. Okay. Go get your firewood." Harry furrowed dark eyebrows at Draco, who sighed and rubbed his forehead with two clammy and shaking palms. 'Alright, Potter, this is your mess,' his Hermione-voiced conscience piped in at the inopportune time- inopportune for Harry, perfect for a conscience hell-bent on the transcendence of everything Harry held dear- everything Harry held _normal._ It really did seem good at figuring out when Harry felt the absolute worst and pouncing on the situation. 'What do you do now? You have this gorgeous creature sitting on his knees before you, eyes waiting- whole body waiting- and you know what for. And you're going to leave and get firewood? You have to set it right. You can't do this. This isn't how any great romance works.'

"Draco- listen- I'm...I'm sorry." Harry finally let his gaze fall on Draco. The boy looked stranded although he hadn't moved an inch since Harry dropped his hands from Draco's thighs. His hair stirred in the wind; gray eyes regarded Harry's tan face, trying to pick out a reason or a cure. Draco's face was pink with sun and embarrassment, but underneath his cool exterior was something deeper, something primal and reeking of fear. It can't be just me, Harry knew then. Something has happened that he's not telling me about. He shifted heavily. "I shouldn't have."

"You're right." Draco stood up, then, dusting sand from the seat of his shorts. "Go get wood. I'll be- I'll be back at the house." Harry didn't watch as Draco strode weak yet deliberate, past where Harry stood. He could barely look at Draco. He didn't know how he'd share a lonely, cold, one-roomed hut with him.

_Only one more night,_ he reminded himself firmly. _One more night._ And this time the voice was Hermione's and there was a distinct tinge to it that Harry could only name as regret. He turned to the forest with heavy, barefooted steps, and wondered how much weight he could carry before he broke down.

Draco sat down with a noiseless thump against the base of their tree. He thought the name 'Harry'; his throat was thick as though trying to swallow an apple whole; his eyes burned and the corners of his mouth pulled sharply downwards.

'You don't cry,' he told himself. 'Not you.'

He wished he did. He wished he made a scene, he wished he threw a tantrum; he wished he could have slapped Harry across his full, broad, tan and handsome face. This suffering in quiet- this obvious need to express and to discuss and to resolve and not opening his too-proud mouth- this was no kind of way to be. He crawled up the ladder miserably and let himself flop against the floor, head bouncing heavy and painful against the rough-hewn wood boards.

"Fuck," he said aloud, and he meant it with all his heart. "Fuck." Because it just felt right, to say that. The way it had felt right for Harry to kiss him. He let his neck go limp, dropping his head to the right; his gray eyes fell on the hammer that was to be their connection back to the world. He picked it up and idly fingered the iron head, rusted with age. "Well, and he did it. It felt right to him. He didn't think about after he took his hands off me and when he couldn't bear to look at me. We can't stay here forever. It'll be different when we go back. It's different now."

"I know." Draco raised his head off the floor. Harry stood, lit from the back, his dark hair washed out and his eyes darker. Draco hadn't heard him come in.

"It's your fault." Draco's voice was low in defense against cracking; he could already feel his face slipping into pathetic-teenage-girl-mode. He reminded himself of Pansy and he didn't like it at all. _Gay, maybe, _he thought grimly, _but no where near Pansy._ He laughed at that. He was quite funny and biting, even in the face of near heartbreak and despair. The cliché of it all made him laugh again. Harry looked at him, cocked and worried, and he didn't move from the doorway. He looked regretful.

"We really have to go."

"Why? Don't you like this island?" Draco's voice was now, decidedly, bitter. "Don't you like what it does to people? Don't you like how it makes me lovely to you? Don't you like that it makes you want to throw me down roughly and straddle my hips and leave bruises on my neck from your hungry, anxious mouth-"

"Draco," Harry's eyes were two warnings. "We have to go."

"Well, I don't think we ought to. I think we ought to stay. I think you ought to feel what it's like to be on the reverse of where you are now. You think you're so goddamn untouchable, don't you? You think you're above feelings- you want a left hand, alright. Two hands on your cock are better than one, that's it, isn't it?"

"Draco."

"No, don't you talk. It's my turn for talking. I'm not- I'm not some whore who gets sexual with everyone I get stranded on a desert island with." He laughed that high, frantic, slightly insane laugh again and Harry flinched. He wanted to cover that thin-lipped, red and swollen mouth with his own, raise it even more from overuse and too much pressure on delicate skin. He wanted to push Draco back against the rough wood wall and nip at the fragile skin around the delicious small swelling of his Adam's apple; but instead he stood in the doorway, afraid of the splinters from a frantic love on unpolished wood floors. "You don't really care. You're horny. That's all."

"No," harry said in his own defense, though he wasn't entirely honest. "I want- I want this. I want you. Like this."

"But you don't want me back in Hogwarts," Draco's voice was cuttingly malicious and hurtfully frank. "You want me where it's quiet and no one can hear us. You want me where no one can see dragging eye locking in the hallways. You don't want to waste time with the flowers and the chocolates and the pleasantries. You want me hot and sweaty and yielding up to you without any ties once it's over." Draco's eyes were dangerously wet. Harry didn't know what would happen if he cried. He lowered himself carefully to the floor, level with Draco who surged forward at the movement, baring his teeth viciously in a hostile, savage, bitter grin. Smile to keep from crying, and Harry said no.

"No? Then how is it, Potter? You're so bloody smart, you tell me how it is. I obviously can't tell it for myself."

"I- when I said that I want you, I meant-"

"Meant what?" Draco was leaning forward, knees on palms, sick and self-loathing with each word he spoke. He saw himself still holding that hammer, banging the lid of his coffin shut with nails made of Harry's disapproving glares from those green eyes and digging his own grave, tossing himself in and away, covered with dirt and dirty as his desires, saving the world from that embittered, ghastly faggot Malfoy. Harry's lips moved, tonguing words that could not find voice. He swallowed, throat bobbing, and Draco's eyes settled there. His neck was innocent. Harry's neck didn't cast a pitying, disgusted, brief look at him. It simply was. Just like Draco.

"I meant as is." It came out loud and fast and breathless, leaving Harry gasping for a breath of air- of something- to fill the gap it left between his lungs. Draco regarded him calmly. "That was- when I- when I kissed you," he tried again, making little sense but not having time to care. "That's the first thing I can remember that mattered. In a long time. That mattered. It seemed like the only thing that's right in all I've done while we've been here."

"Don't say that." Draco hissed it, the grin gone and replaced by an ethereal and severe mask of the boy he was when smiling. "You're getting out of your head if you say that and don't mean it with all your heart. Either say one thing or another, but be man enough to say it. I won't die from it. My heart won' t bleed out of my chest. I'll move on. So will you."

"I mean it." Harry stared at Draco and it seemed suddenly that he couldn't bear the thought of not seeing those stormy, angry, fickle gray eyes every day, every morning, only brightening for him. It was enough to make him swallow hard and look away, sniffing hard, irises upturned to the roof of palm fronds, begging for an answer. He took the words out of Draco's stormy mouth. "I mean it with all my heart." Draco melted then, the anger leaving him and leaving him weak as water. He crawled the short meter to Harry and collapsed against him, half against his chest, long legs sprawled out without purpose. His breathing was hot against Harry's bare chest, over his lungs. The Portkey had dropped from his hand with a thud and he pushed it idly away with his dirty, calloused foot.

"I lost the Portkey," he said with a sad and careful smirk, and Harry pulled him roughly up and kissed him hard, intent on nothing but the smell of Draco's hair and the light against his shoulders that made him light up.


	9. As Lovers Go

The Way it Grows

Springfall

(A/N: Here we are :) This chapter's 'song' is 'As Lovers Go', by Dashboard Confessional. Enjoy, you all—oh, and for those of you who have requested the NC-17 part, expect it before the New Year, as my Christmas present to you all. It happens in this part, in case you didn't know. I will mark the place with a ':)' so you will all know that's where the supplement will pick up. )

* * *

Part IX

As Lovers Go

* * *

It was cold when Harry woke up on his back. For a moment, he couldn't think _why_ it would be cold- he was on a tropical island. Groggily his mind searched for the answer as his equally lethargic hands groped blindly for his glasses. Pushing them up the bridge of his nose, a fair halo of blonde hair provided the solution. Draco. Always, always Draco. Harry's cheeks ached and he pushed his hair off his neck. Draco shifted against Harry's side, head curled on Harry's bare chest, crown neatly tucked below Harry's strong chin. A slender, clammy arm snaked across Harry's abdomen and a whimper brought Harry's attention back to the chill in the air. His eyes looked to the makeshift roof. The fronds were wet and were sagging with what revealed itself to be water weight, a smooth, dark puddle in the middle of their rough floor.

"Great," Harry grumbled, and craned his neck down to look at Draco. His stomach growled under the pale arm and he sighed, gently removing himself from under Draco's head, unwillingly, slightly fearful. He stretched, extending his arms above his head, his ribs under his skin taught. His back cricked and he clapped a hand to it, wincing at the same time that it felt relieving. Draco stirred, curling up on himself, and Harry pulled on his shorts and set his foot on the top rung of the ladder. Going down, he fell more than he descended and his feet nearly went out from under him in a muddy wallow below the hut. He recovered himself crankily. What a way to start the morning.

He made his way to the little spring- his spring, their spring. It was different, to have something only shared between two people. It was unfamiliar and it was—_nice. _He splashed water onto his face, wiping it off with both of his calloused hands, flicking the excess moisture off with two vigorous shakes of his wrists. His stomach growled again and he was reminded of breakfast. He shambled his way up the rough trunk of an orange tree, loading his pockets with the baseball-sized citrus fruit. Hopping down, he felt uneasy, as though someone watched him. He turned unwillingly, not sure he wanted to know who it was- or what.

It was only Draco, barely dressed, wearing only thin cotton boxer shorts. Harry sighed. "Why are you awake?"

"I was cold," Draco looked askance at Harry, as if questioning his sanity. "If you haven't noticed, this whole goddamn jungle is covered in water."

"I think it's going to rain again," Harry remarked, looking skywards. Draco's eyes followed his. "It's cloudy."

"Thank you, because I couldn't tell." Harry leveled a look at him, and Draco felt as though he was staring down the barrel of a shotgun. "You alright?"

"No," Harry snapped, attempting to stuff his hands into his too-full pockets. When that failed, he crossed his arms against his brown chest and stomped- for lack of a better word, Draco thought, he's stomping like a toddler building for a tantrum- back to the hut, hauling himself up into the hut. Draco followed him, and sat down across from Harry, who was ruthlessly unloading the oranges from his trousers, banging them violently against the floor. Draco watched him quietly for a moment, reaching out for and orange and ripping a hunk of the skin off with his teeth, starting to peel with deft fingers.

"You could have asked for one instead of snatching it," Harry mumbled, eyebrows furrowed in irritation, and Draco couldn't help but laugh in wonder at him.

"Are you going to brood and abuse fruit some more, or are you going to lump it and tell me what's on your mind?"

Harry looked up ferociously. "You don't care for me at all."

"What?" Draco looked surprised and it felt like his eyes were hanging out of his head. "What in Merlin's name are you talking about?"

"You don't," Harry replied fiercely, eyes burning behind his glasses. "This is all just some- some _ploy!_ Some goddamn Slytherin joke! You're just trying to get me to say that _I'm gay,_ that the famous Harry Potter likes to _sleep with boys_, aren't you?" Harry ranted on, nearing hysteria, and Draco did not know if he should laugh or cry.

"Harry- stop. Harry, would you just listen to me?" Harry raved on, banging an orange against his hand in emphasis as he shouted, getting up and pacing. Draco dropped his fair brows in frustration, stood up as well, and grabbed Harry forcefully by the upper arms. "Potter." Harry stopped, sullen, and dropped his face to the floor, not looking at Draco. "What are you _talking_ about? Why are you suddenly so angry and thinking the worst of me?"

"Why would you be so cruel to me and my friends all these years if you _cared_ for me?" Harry was suddenly quiet and Draco thought he preferred the shouting to that disappointed tone.

"Ever heard of keeping your mates close, your enemies closer?" Harry shook his head, defiantly. Draco sighed. "What about the fine line between love and hate?" Harry didn't reply. "Harry, don't make this _hard!_ This is fine- believe me- this is _easy_ as lovers go. It's _wonderful._ Don't complicate it by hesitating or second-guessing or waiting. Do you think you're wasting your time?"

"No," Harry said roughly, and Draco sighed with a smile. It was hard to tell if he was gaining any ground. "I just don't want you taking me for an easy mark."

"Do you really believe that I do?"

"No," Harry replied, grudgingly calm again. He set the mangled orange down. "I just- I didn't know for certain."

Outside, there was a sudden roar, and the hiss of a thousand pounds of rain slammed against the walls of the hut, driving wind pressing none through the cracks. Draco had woken up from the rain and done a charm early in the morning. Harry looked like he was thinking of leaving. Draco let him go, and regarded him calmly. "Do you think you're going out there?"

"I don't know what I think," Harry told him. "Tell the truth, I'm worried- I'm scared. You know what that feels like."

"I know that you're the Boy who Lived and all," Draco sounded contemptuous as he spoke the words. "And I know you're so brave and you're so _passionate_- and believe you me, I know what it feels like better than you can imagine. But are you brave enough to not leave here?"

"Draco-"

"I've got to be honest- I've been waiting for you all my life. I always wanted to _meet_ you. Everyone knows you, Harry. People you will never meet in this life know you- people you never _want_ to meet in this life know you. I've been waiting for you. And I never knew what you looked like, until I saw you that day in the robe shop. And I said, "He's too familiar." And it's because I've been waiting on you."

"Draco." Harry was grabbing him now, tightly. "Are you-?"

"This is made for us," Draco replied steadily, held up by his own two feet as well as Harry's hands. "We'll never have a place or a time like now. What's the sense in waiting?"

And Harry kissed him hard, and Draco smiled against his mouth. Around them, the rain poured down, knowing and muffling.

* * *

**:-)

* * *

**

The next morning, it was still cold, and Draco woke up gasping, eyes wide, frantically clutching at the arm restraining him. His hands were clammy. He gulped sickly, eyes blank and mouth working restlessly, uselessly. "I didn't mean to," he wanted to say; "It's him, it's him, not me." It didn't come out.

"Nnyugh," he said, and nearly snorted with the _intelligence_ of it all.

"Good morning to you." Snape regarded him with a small, unwilling smile yielded up despite himself. "Did you tell Mr. Potter you're not leaving today?"

"Em- no," Draco replied honestly. "I- I forgot." He turned uncharacteristically red. Snape coughed and turned his face aside, as if to spare them both the grin he bore.

"You want to get dressed," Snape said, suddenly serious, turning back to Draco. "You're going to have company tonight."

"W-what?" Draco blinked confused; he was naked, he was in Harry's arms, and Severus was in front of him, holding an umbrella in the crook of his arm and looking both startled and unsurprised at the very same time. He was a funny man, Draco thought, and then he recalled his state and pushed off Harry's arm and pulled on shorts. He dropped shorts on Harry's lap, and the boy moaned and rolled over, an arm over his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger- were threatened. Dumbledore thought of you both here, and decided it would be best to place you all four in the same location, so we don't lose you."

"You are bringing Weasley and Granger here? With us?"

"Don't look so excited, Draco." He cast an appraising, hasty eye on Harry, before looking away. "I see you've worked things out."

"Em…yes. I have." He was proud and ashamed and looked at Snape's dull boots. He missed that small smile again.

"I am glad." Snape leaned forward. "Take care to remain yourself." He touched Draco's head and opened his umbrella. With a snap like a broken bone, Snape was gone, a faint tendril smoke left curling upward. Behind him, Harry stirred, bleary-eyed, and asked in a sleep-choked voice:

"Draco? Come back here. It's too early."

Draco complied, thinking, 'Suppose I should enjoy it while I can."

* * *

Halfway across the world, Hermione quietly put a swimsuit into her bag. 


	10. Intermission, if you will

This is not really a chapter, so I apologize for interrupting the story like this but I wanted the word out.

I sent out to quite a few people the smut!chapter, but I never got a response. I'm not sure if anyone received it. So I would like this opportunity to post this message, letting you know it is ready for your consumption and if you'd like it, it's waiting for you. Please leave a review if you want it and I'll e-mail it straightaway; and if I e-mailed it to you already and you received it, please leave a comment saying you got it, because I'd hate to spam you all with it. I would put it on my fandom Livejournal, except it would be far too out-of-context for everyone else who reads that. :-)

That said, I am very busy with school these next two weeks (exams and everything). I am almost thinking about a full-scale re-write (to be posted on my livejournal), but I'm not sure if I have the strength. There are a few glitches that need fixing, but we'll get there when we get there. The day that my exams are finished (Next Friday) I will be writing the 10th chapter to celebrate.

Thank you ALL for sticking with me. This is my very first big 'epic' story and I can't work on it half as much as I like. It means a lot to me that you all enjoy it so much and that you're all patient enough to see it through to the conclusion. I am not sure how many chapters it will end up having- but probably no more than 20.

Thanks again, and I hope you all had a very happy new year. See you in two weeks with a new chapter!

3

--SF


	11. These Lonely Dreams

The Way it Grows

Springfall

((AN: Thank you all and as promised, here is part ten :) Hope you enjoy! The smut!chapter is still available for those of you who would like it; just leave your email in your review. This has been an incredibly hard chapter to write; I feel like I am totally changing the direction of this story. Sorry for how long it's taken. I am planning another smut!chapter- possibly triosmut. You will have to let me know what you think of this part and if you think triosmut will work; I've always been partial to it. And don't worry. Draco/Harry won't be changing any time soon :) enjoy!))

Part X

These Lonely Dreams

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

It was true- he _couldn't_. It was bad enough he would be wasting his winter break on some bloody island. It was bad enough that he had been sick over Harry for the last week. It was bad enough, he thought, that the school was under attack. He almost thought, 'again', and with scorn- but he stopped himself. It was bad enough without sarcasm making it worse.

And now, he had to go to an island- with _Malfoy_. "I really can't believe I'm doing this," he told her again, insistent, as though if he said it enough someone would throw up their hands and release him from his duty.

"Stop whining, Ron," Hermione's voice was sharp and busy, as she folded her last shorts and zipped up the duffle they had been instructed to share. Bring as little as you can, Snape had told her- and she had, she thought. Ron's clothes were crumpled and rolled into balls, stuffed in without regard to what they were. She had gone back and quietly put in more things he needed- shorts and a toothbrush and a pair of socks, though in all honesty she didn't know what good socks would do them in the South Pacific. Practical, she guessed. Always practical. "We have to go."

She hoisted the heavy cloth bag onto her shoulder and staggered down the steep, narrow staircase to the Common Room, Ron sulking along behind her. Their feet were loud on the narrow stairway. They were the only two in the tower- the other Gryffindors had been relocated for safety. At the portrait, they stopped, and Hermione put the bag down heavily. Without a word, Ron pulled it up by the fraying strap, slung it across thin shoulders, and ducked his rusty head to get through the narrow threshold. Without a word, both of them turned to look back at the empty portrait. Hermione had a sudden, gripping fear she would never see it again, and she was dizzy, as if standing on a high ledge, looking over a precipice, knowing that you had to jump.

They clattered silently to the Grand Hall, where Snape was waiting, unceremoniously wearing a dark blue tunic and looking impatient. It gave Hermione a turn, if she was honest with herself; he looked younger in the bright hall. His shoes were badly scuffed under the hem of his black trousers, and when she realized how she was scrutinizing him, she flushed darkly and looked to Ron, who looked back at her with more trepidation than she had ever seen on his face.

"You are ready, I presume?" Snape's voice was hollow and he sounded tired, tired. Hermione had never really thought of him as a _person-_ he was so callous and so cruel in his words. But seeing him like this, his face open and sallow and exhausted, his hair hanging messily in greasy, lank strands around his long face- she felt a pull towards him, and her opinion nearly softened until she recalled herself- recalled him. Ron wore a look of disgust as he gazed, unwillingly, at Snape.

"Yes, Professor," he spat in a low, submissive growl, and Hermione didn't think Ron could hate him more if he tried. Snape turned away from Ron, obviously not in the mood for a clash of personalities. He addressed Hermione.

"Here you are." He held up a dirty, ripped-up blanket. "I thought something non-violent would be in order this time." He did not elaborate, and Hermione did not ask. Ron was staring at the lines on the stone floor, his blue eyes straining. She could see the sunlight making his dark eyelashes as red as his messy hair, and she started when Snape spoke again. "Miss Granger, I do not know how long you and Mr. Weasley will be on the island with Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy. I will be in contact every so often. If you would like me to bring you lot anything- do not hesitate to ask me."

She wondered, suddenly, why he was doing this for them.

"Thank you," was all she could say. He dragged a weary hand through his hair.

"If you're ready," he held out the blanket to the two in front of him, his pale fingers curled in its folds. Hermione reached out for it, taking hold of the dirty, rough fabric, and Ron hoisted the bag up over his shoulder and extended his fingers towards it as well. A shout made him turn, Hermione with him. Snape's black eyes flicked towards the sound.

Ginny hurried towards them, clutching her long robes up around her to keep from tripping. She nearly knocked Ron over, and he staggered back, dropping the bag from his shoulder and hugging her hard to him, his chin on her bright, wild hair. A protesting squawk sounded somewhere from between them, and she drew back, offering up her hands. Pigwidgeon squirmed there, displeased at being restrained, and she let him go. He settled on Ron's arm, hooting quietly. He had calmed remarkably over the summer.

"If you take Pig, maybe- maybe you could write to me," Ginny looked frail, suddenly, and Hermione got the distinct impression that the witty, bold, sarcastic Ginny she knew was not so strong without her brothers- and this was the last of her brothers, Hermione realized. Ginny had always had Ron- and now, he was leaving, and only Merlin knew for how long. Hermione was quiet, letting Ron have the moment to nearly crush Ginny in his lean arms, kissing the tangled red hair, letting her go. "'Bye, then. Say- say hello to Harry for me."

"Gin," Ron muttered, and Ginny turned from him, smiled small at Hermione, and retreated as quickly as she had come, her arms limp by her sides, robes tangled up about her ankles as she turned a corner and was lost from sight. Ron scrubbed his eyes and turned back, picking up the bag again, grabbing Pig, and took a fierce hold on the blanket. Hermione was jerked forward and then they were spinning, all three, with a frantic shriek from Pigwidgeon.

His feet hit the ground, hard, and he staggered and dropped the blanket, grabbing Hermione's arm to keep her from falling. Snape folded his arms with a graceful sneer in Ron's direction, and set the blanket down. "Keep it in case- in case you have to get back." He did not say what would merit that kind of emergency. Ron reckoned they would know when the time came. "I left Mr. Malfoy and Potter in their- in the shelter. I believe they will be down about here very shortly. I do not suggest wandering off- it is rather a big island."

"So we're here until?" Ron's voice was angry, demanding, and he frowned at himself, thinking he sounded childish and afraid. Snape replied calmly, although the sneer lingered on his forehead and around his eyes.

"Until it is safe for all four of you to return. Enjoy it while you're here. Not many people get a private tropical island to themselves." Snape was gone with a violent crack that made Ron flinch, and only a hazy patch of air remained. Ron turned to Hermione, skeptical.

"Now what?"

"Now we wait. Like Snape said- we may as well enjoy it. We're going to be here for a while." Hermione went to their bag and opened it, rummaging through the balls of Ron's clothes until she found her swimsuit. She toed off her worn trainers and socks, putting the suit on top of them to keep the sand out, and turned her back on Ron. He was about to ask her what she was doing, when she pulled her shirt off, her arms rising up in a smooth arc over her curly hair, crossing and uncrossing as she bent to drop the shirt to the sand.

"W- Hermione- I'm-" his face was as red as the bright flowers blooming on nearby shrubs, and she turned her brown face over her shoulder to look at him. She did not laugh aloud, but her face held a secret, contented look.

"It's not like you've never seen someone take their shirt off," she told him smartly, and his face grew a deeper crimson. She returned to undressing, pleased with herself, but behind Ron's eyelids were muffled nights and slick limbs and a dark head whispering with a wet mouth against his ear. By the time Ron realized himself, Hermione had undone her jeans and let them fall, pulled her bathing suit up over her underclothes, and managed to wiggle out of them without exposing herself. He blinked and his eyes focused, and there she was before him, in a deep jade-green swimsuit, with high-cut legs and a scoop neck. It struck Ron he had never seen her in a swimsuit before. His face reddened again at how very- well, feminine she was, with her soft arms and small hips, the gentle curves her thighs followed, and her round breasts; he looked away, embarrassed and ashamed to look at her like that. He noticed that she had a large mole on her back, just below and between her shoulder blades. Her long curls hung heavy and she pulled her hair up, knotting it on top of her head, and looked up at him. "Aren't you coming in?" She made her way towards the water, and he watched her muscles move.

"Y-yeah, why bloody not," and stripped off his pants and his sweater, suddenly hotter than he had ever felt in his life, and followed her into the bright ocean. It was pleasantly warm under the glaring sun. It shone off the small waves that broke around Hermione's waist, and on impulse he splashed her, getting her in the face with the salt water, and she squealed and threw water at him in defense, the sunlight catching in the spray, turning it to glass that fell towards. He felt very young and very unconcerned, and it contented him until he smiled despite himself, teeth bright from the garish sun. He pushed her under, and when she came up she was hugging him, hugging him tightly, and for once instead of trying to understand her, he hugged her back, hard, and felt her joints crack.

"I'm glad you came, Ron,"

"I'm glad, too. I'm glad."

"Harry." Draco shook the tan shoulder under his chin. "Harry- you've got to get up."

"'S too early," Harry pulled him down hard and Draco, unwillingly, pulled away.

"It's almost noon."

"Since when do you care what time it is? We're on a bloody island." Harry sat up, though, and tilted Draco's chin to kiss him softly. But Draco could only think of what Snape had said about Weasley and Granger, and _Weasley_ put a bad taste in his mouth.

"I've got a surprise for you."

"A surprise?" Harry stretched, his muscles pulling taught on his bones, his dark stomach dry and outlining ribs. His brown hands groped beside him for his glasses and his shorts. Draco handed them to him, and he slithered into the sun-bleached clothing and pressed his dirty frames on behind his ears. Draco realized he hadn't been wearing them as much as usual. Suppose he doesn't need to read much out here, Draco thought, and noticed he had missed them.

"Something like that. Come on." And when Draco stood, Harry did; Draco thought wistfully and briefly it would have been nice if he did because he did not wish to leave Draco's sight. That was foolish. Most everything, though, that had happened here was foolish- so could it be true? Couldn't it? He knew that nothing good would be able to come of this. This island, it did something to them- it made them free. They wouldn't always be here. They wouldn't always love what they could never have.

But why can we never have what makes us happy?

"Draco," shook him from his reverie. "You look…em, kind of bad. Do you…are you okay? Still? With this?"

"With us?" Harry nodded assent. And for a moment, he was afraid- he was afraid of how this might end.

"I was sure last night. And I am." He knew the way Harry felt. "No one else has to know, Harry. It can- it can just be ours."

"D'you mean that?" Draco desperately wanted to take that back, but it was said. It was said, just like last night was done. He wanted this to be open-ended. He wanted-

He didn't know what he wanted, but yeah. He meant it. He said as much, and Harry smiled. And it made him feel a little better. Harry stopped and yanked him back by the waist, picking him up off the ground, and it struck Draco suddenly that Harry had always been bigger than him. "Thank you." Harry's nose and mouth were against Draco's neck, nuzzling his hair. "I meant what I said to you." He pulled back, his mouth crooked. "What kind of surprise?"

"What are you hoping for?"

"Would you hit me if I said 'sex'?" and Draco hit him, and they both laughed. Harry leaned down and kissed him briefly, but Draco pulled him in, and then it wasn't so brief and it wasn't so innocent and nothing more would have pleased either of them. But sex was not to be done, Draco reminded himself sourly, when one was supposed to be reuniting Harry with The Enemy. Or Weasley. Or both.

Draco finally tore himself away, and he led Harry to the beach. Harry's fingers remained laced in Draco's, and Draco thought with a grim smile that he would regret that. They finally cleared the tall, rough palm trees and Draco dropped Harry's hand, letting Harry stop flush beside him. He turned his shaded eyes to the two figures flailing around in the water, and his lip curled in disdain. Harry followed his gaze, confused.

"Surprise," Draco said, and cupped tan hands about his small mouth and shouted: "OI! Up here!"

Ron and Hermione turned and spotted the two figures at the top of the beach, one with shaggy white hair and raised hands, the other taller, shading his eyes, light glinting off the lenses of his glasses, brown and broad and bare-chested. Draco's skin was darker than they had recalled. They both struggled up out of the sea, and Draco stepped back as they thundered up to Harry, the girl reaching him first; as Hermione flung herself into Harry, knocking him back. She held onto him tightly and her bushy hair was soaking, Draco thought disdainfully about the likeness to a wet dog. She took his face between her palms and he felt rage, nothing but anger at her touching Harry, but he breathed and stepped back, stepped back.

"Oh, Harry, we've been so worried, we've missed you terribly- Merlin, you're so skinny, haven't you been eating? Oh, the whole school's torn up over Abby, no one knows what happened-" she was muffled as she hugged him again.

"Hermione, Hermione- calm down, it's alright, I'm right here. Here, hold on, let go a minute. What are you doing here- Ron."

And this time, Harry moved to Ron, and grabbed him hard, and crushed him to his chest. Ron's light face was against Harry's cheek, holding him tight, and it looked almost uncomfortable to Draco- but he knew better. The only one uncomfortable right now was Draco. He looked up at the sky and noticed it was getting dark. Rain. More rain. Wonderful. This day was wonderful.

Harry, finally, grudgingly, released Ron. "What- I don't understand," and this time, he looked at Draco, who held up his hands.

"I'm just the messenger. Professor Snape was here, early this morning. You were still- still sleeping," he finished weakly, and Harry turned from him without any sort of notice.

"There was another attack," Ron explained, while Hermione beamed at him, clucking under her breath about how he was clearly not eating enough. "Little blonde second-year. They were thinking- they think it's You-Know-Who. So they sent us to you. That's why Snape has kept you both here."

"I didn't know- I didn't know any of this," Harry sounded exasperated, turning back to Draco. "You knew, didn't you?"

Draco shrugged helplessly. "Are you surprised?" And suddenly Harry realized the way he had been talking, and his face softened, and Ron saw and glowered in Draco's direction.

"Yes. T- Thanks." But Draco's eyes were on Ron's angry face, and he turned, feeling naked suddenly, and he knew that Ron knew. It was as plain as day, and Ron knew. And when Harry turned back, Ron still bore that angry look, and Harry shifted, uncomfortable. It was clear to Draco, and he groaned inwardly. Now there would be the anger, along with the hate and the distrust and the suspicion, to bear from Weasley.

"It's going to storm again," he spoke up, and the two of them looked at him like he was something grotesque. Harry just looked sorry, and a little betrayed. "We should take your bags up to the house."

"You have a house?" Hermione asked Harry, suspiciously, surprised. Draco resigned himself to not being addressed directly anymore. "Yeah," Harry said. "It's…well, it's up a tree."

"A treehouse?" Ron looked suddenly animated. "Wicked! Do you have a trap door and a rope ladder and all that Swiss Family Robinson stuff?"

Harry and Hermione looked at him with raised eyebrows. "I was reading," he explained sheepishly. "Dean has it."

"Yes," Draco drawled, feeling like he at least should get his two cents' in. "We swing on vines, as well." A look from Hermione quelled him. That Mudblood- she looked at him like she knew him, like she had any idea what he had felt and said and what Harry had told him and the places on his body Harry had put his hands.

_'That's right,'_ he sneered mentally to Hermione, who looked over at him. '_I fucked Wonder Boy, I slept with your beloved Boy Who Lived, and he told me he loved me and he meant it, did you know?'_

And then he swallowed nervously, because suddenly Hermione knew too. But instead of hate in her eyes, there was worry. He was not sure which he disliked more, the anger or the concern. And Hermione picked up the bag, and said to Harry: "Show us the house. I don't want to get caught in the rain.

As she passed, her dark brown eyes looked fully at Draco, and she said aloud,

"I hope you know what you're doing, Harry."

Harry looked back at Draco, and he hoped he knew too. Draco did not meet his gaze, only followed behind them, dragging his feet, and suddenly, Harry was afraid for him. For them.

For himself.


	12. Learn to be Lonely

The Way It Grows

Springfall

((A/N: Not much to say about this bit. It is almost entirely about Draco, as I know you guys love, and it is almost all in his/Harry's POV. And the angst is here in abundance, but you all love that too. As do I >-B Hope you enjoy! The title and the song for this one, I suppose we will say, is 'Learn to be Lonely', sung by Minnie Driver off the new Phantom of the Opera soundtrack. I recommend the movie- it's no Broadway, but it's very, very good. :)))

* * *

Part XI

Learn to be Lonely

* * *

After Harry discovered that they were out of food, he volunteered to go out to the grove and grab some fruit. Draco had fled the awkward silence as quickly as he could and he had, without really thinking about it, found himself at the beach- his and Harry's beach. But, typically, he thought with a harsh sneer he did not realize his face wore, Ron and Hermione tramped down to the same beach and flopped down on driftwood, eyes up at the storm overhead.

He was angry. Draco sat as far away from them as he could, his face darker than the sky above. It was still raining, but he didn't care anymore. He didn't care, he told himself over and over; but the name _Harry_ made him realize it was a lie. He did care. If he didn't, Granger and Weasley wouldn't bother him so. He turned his eyes up to the sky, and he sighed. Typical, he leaves the hut to get away from them and they choose the one place to go, the same goddamn spot of beach he sought sanctuary from.

It was beautiful, if nothing else. He had always stopped and noticed how it was- he didn't know why. But the rain was gray and the sky was almost violet; the lightning was bright and blinding and a neon sort of lavender. The sea was angry, angry and raging and loud and completely helpless to do anything about it. Draco sympathized. He felt trapped, trapped- he felt empty.

He hadn't always felt like this, had he? He strained to think as far back as he could. His father- well, his father had never really loved him, always thought him scrawny and small and querulous, too squeamish for the life Lucius planned for his son to have. His mother was kind and cold and distracted and distant- she must have known what it would be like, marrying Lucius Malfoy, but sometimes Draco wondered. He saw her writing letters, sometimes, and she would never say to whom. His father had no idea, he knew that much, and a bored, frustrated prepubescent Draco used to write stories in his journal about Narcissa, beautiful and sad, trapped in a high tower by a handsome and stern man she did not love. Those letters- they were to a love who was seeking her from far away; across a thousand worlds. Draco could never finish the story; he never had a name for the man in the letters. An older Draco scoffed at the old stories; how could his mother ever do that? She wouldn't; it was simply not a possibility. He was ashamed to admit he had ever thought of his mother as a person. And so, he had never asked her, even once he was old enough to understand what his mother wanted in those letters. He never did find out what the man's name was- if it even was a man. He supposed he never would, now.

Even in his family, around aunts and cousins and parents and servants, he had been by himself, separate. He looked back to earth and saw Weasley sigh. How wonderful would it be, to be like that? With so many people close to you, to love you and scold you and teach you how to be? Draco had never been punished in all his life. Nor had he ever been encouraged. The most he had ever gotten from his father was a stiff nod, from his mother a sweet and fleeting smile. Narcissa's embraces were always absent, her face vague, eyes far away. It was if his mother wished herself somewhere else- and had her mind there anyway. It was just her body that was stuck, tied down with a severe husband and a disappointing son. Weasley- he must be grounded half a dozen times a summer, and he must have ten times as many family squabbles and dinners. Some part of Draco so deep and so obscure ached so hard for that it made his chest hurt and his sinuses. He had never felt comforted or cared for, although he must have been- as well as he could be, he must have been held.

Draco thought the rain had grown warm, before a lump in his throat told him he was crying. He was ashamed, then, and he stood up quickly and silently. But he heard his name across the blowing wind and rain, and against his better thoughts, he crept towards the two where they sat on a damp, rotting driftwood log, wet shorts clinging to his thighs, chafing his delicate skin. He made no sound, simply crouched low behind a palm tree not fifty feet from them, listening hard over the rain and the sound of his sniffing. They were talking loudly, but he supposed that wasn't so strange- the ocean was raging, and after all- they thought they were alone. _They might as well be_, Draco thought with another unconscious sneer and a hiccup.

They were talking about Harry. _Of course they would be_, Draco thought in contempt, _vacuous little clinging followers._ No insult would ever be great enough, and in his own heart he thought 'Mudblood' and he felt better, if only a small bit.

He watched the pair of them, so oblivious to anything else. He watched as Ron leaned his rusty head against Hermione's shoulder. "I think we've lost him, Hermione," he said glumly, brushing her curls off his cheek. She sighed, her knees bent and hugged against her chest.

"I'm afraid too, Ron," she chose her words carefully. "But- have you seen him look at Draco?" Draco leaned forwards, against his own will.

"Since when is he Draco?" Hermione turned her head, and Ron shut up. "I- I meant, I haven't noticed."

"That's your problem. Harry lights up. He lights up, Ron. Don't you want him to feel that way? Are you really so jealous and possessive that you can't be happy for him?"

_Yes,_ Draco thought with loathing to them both.

"Yes_,"_ Ron sighed, admitting defeat. "I just- he's ours, you know how I feel, don't you? You know how I feel."

"I know." Ron slung his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her tightly against him, resting his cheek on hers. "It hurts me too, you know. You can't admit that it hurts, but I know you feel that way." They both lifted eyes to the violet lightning striking the ocean, the waves wild. Draco followed their gaze. "It's beautiful here, though, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

Draco withdrew a little back into the woods, watching this exchange without interest. Nothing they could say or do, he decided, would be worth watching. He was just about to leave when he heard familiar footsteps over the mix of sand and dead forest floor debris, and he drew back deeper for cover, moving closer on the side to the two, unwillingly- but more unwilling to be caught.

They were quiet for a while, Ron absentmindedly stroking her wet back, Hermione's breathing evening after a while, though her heart still raced. They sat the same when Harry finally found them, drenched to the bone, and wiping soaked hair back from his forehead, bare feet sandy. He debated calling out for them, but his voice did not work. Instead he settled down on the other side of Hermione, and when he held his arms out, Hermione and Ron both moved into them. Hermione, cramped between them, her arms jacked uncomfortably, one around Ron and the other snaked around Harry's back, did not see Harry touch Ron's cheek, and Ron drop his eyes. She did not hear what Harry said, only felt the rumbling in his chest as he spoke. The rain was too loud, her heart was too fast.

Draco heard, his heart stuttering still, as though his whole life had been leading up to this one moment. He heard, and he wished he hadn't- but he wished that about a lot of things. He stayed where he was, and he heard the whole exchange, and he felt sick at them- but sicker at himself.

"I'm sorry, Ron," Harry managed, and it felt to Draco like the first thing that Harry had said all day. Ron shrugged slightly, Harry's palm burning his cheek.

"Yeah," Ron replied finally, after avoiding Harry's expectant gaze for a moment. "I am, too." He reached across Hermione's bent head and kissed Harry very softly on the mouth, and Harry did not push him away, resting his forehead against Ron's, closing his eyes. Hermione's small hand against his back anchored him, and he grabbed them both, hard, squeezing, ignoring a whimper of discomfort from the girl. Ron's forehead and Harry's were flush, and the kiss lingered. "I'm sorry, too."

Draco stood and turned away then, hand leaning on the palm tree for support, watching the three more than the storm with colors he'd never seen in the sky before. He would have never thought he'd see the day he was more interested in Weasley than he was in the world around him. "Fuck," he whispered, and dropped himself to the ground again, wishing he could join the little huddle on the rocks; knowing that he never could, he raised his hands to his face, fighting against tears that came again anyway.

_But it's not so surprising_, he thought bitterly. All his life, he had never been in a tight knit circle; he had friends, he had enemies, he had cronies. He did not have this strange love that the three of them shared. He had never felt so alone before, he did not think. But he managed to struggle clumsily to his feet.

"Why does it matter?" he knew no one would hear him if he spoke out loud. He needed to say it- he needed to hear it. From someone. And if no one would say it to him, well. He would say it himself.

"I don't need anyone. I can be lonely. I can be happy, all by myself. I don't need Harry Potter or his little friends- I don't need my mother or my father. I don't need to count on anyone, and I don't need anyone to count on me. I'm the one I'm stuck with for life. Everyone else, they come and go, like storms. As long as I'm alright with myself- I'm alright all over, then, aren't I?"

He lingered by the tree, his gray eyes wistful and hard. "I don't need you, Harry Potter. I've always gotten my joy from what I can count on. You, you're so good- you're in Heaven with your role in your little trio and your importance and your eyes and your scar. Well, Harry Potter, don't bother coming down- I've made friends with the silence I'm used to. I was empty before, and I'm empty now. I was born empty- I was born to be lonely. And you know what, Harry?" He knew it was not Harry he really spoke to. "I don't mind so much. "I've always known that I'm on my own. I always have been. I won't change that for you- not to be hurt again. I never knew that there was someone who would care for me- and there isn't. Not someone like that for me. It's not safe, and I'm better off with just my own heart than hurt and used and battered by someone else's."

At that moment, while Draco stood talking to no one, his eyes glazed over, his tears gone, Harry raised his head and looked behind him. When he thought back to it, he did not know why he decided to look when he did- but Harry, he could never explain half the things he did. He saw Draco, standing at the crest of the beach. He looked wild, wild and beautiful and sad- the same way Draco thought of his mother, the same way Buckbeak had looked to Harry, the same way Harry had felt when he laid eyes on Sirius. Harry felt the urge to drop everything he touched and go to him, crush Draco against him, hold him until there was nothing left.

"I don't need you, Harry Potter," Draco said, and his eyes focused. He laughed- harsh and short, but honest. He stood and he laughed, and for the first time he did not feel like crying. And he saw Harry, and his laugh faded, but the smile lingered on his face. He would be alright. Draco would be happy, Harry or no.

Draco was not quite convinced, but he trudged back up to the orchard, his wet back to the three of them and to Harry's anxious face. Suddenly, standing there with his hair plastered in front of his eyes, he wasn't afraid of the dark anymore.

"I reckon I just had to get used to it," he said aloud, and his voice was about the same sound to his heart as the ocean. And he laughed again.

* * *

Harry let go of Ron. Blue eyes opened, and so close to his face that they were blurry. Harry stood up, and his face was gray, drawn, worried. "Where are you going?" Hermione's voice came, and he looked down at the two of them, forlorn and frightened and strangely victorious, and suddenly he realized he couldn't choose Hermione and Ron. He couldn't be happy like that- he didn't need two other right hands. They were so close; they almost _were_ a part of himself.

"I have to go." It was final and rushed and he turned abruptly from them and struggled through the thick, heavy sand, thinking furiously. Ron and Hermione watched him go until they could no longer see him, and then Ron turned away and covered his face.

"I told you," he said finally, rocking subconsciously, Hermione's hand on his knee. "I told you we've lost him. That fucking- that fucking _Malfoy_ took him away from us."

Hermione gently squeezed Ron's leg, and a voice welled up in her, against her will. The truth was not what would make Ron feel better- it wouldn't make her feel any better, either, but it was Ron that concerned her. It wasn't to say- but the truth had a strange way of ripping itself free, and Hermione was the one who ended up folding. She always had. It was who she was- she couldn't let things be unsaid. It was too hard, she was too tired, too tired. She struggled and she failed, and knowing and hating what she was about to say, she blurted out:

"Maybe he was never ours to keep."


End file.
